InOrder, The Health Systems Institute is established under Affordable Quality Health (AQH), a not-for-profit entity devoted to public health education, capacity building, research and advocacy. We are pleased to announce participation of InOrder, The Health Systems Institute in supporting Project PRAKASH, a multi-site, multi-year implementation research initiative aimed at supporting the Government of India’s Anaemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) 2.0 strategy. This project is funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Despite decades of national programming, anaemia continues to affect a significant portion of India’s population, particularly women of reproductive age, pregnant women, young children, and adolescents. AMB 2.0 seeks to reduce anaemia prevalence through a more precise, integrated and evidence-based approach. Project PRAKASH is designed to strengthen these efforts by identifying, implementing, and refining district-level delivery strategies that can effectively increase coverage and adherence to AMB interventions.
The study is being conducted across five states, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh. The primary recipient of the grant is Prof. Bhuputra Panda, Professor of Public Health at KIIT Deemed to be University who is the Principal Investigator for this study. Affordable Quality Health (AQH), under the leadership of Dr N Krishna Reddy who is a Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) of the study, acts as an implementing partner and thus leads the implementation strategies in Kendujhar district of Odisha. Prof. Harshad Thakur from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS-Mumbai) is another Co-PI and acts as a knowledge partner for this study.
Over a 42-month period, the project will have distinct phases: baseline assessment, formative phase, iterative model development phase, and end-line evaluation phase- guided by globally recognized implementation research frameworks. Experts from ICMR and independent thematic experts with multi-disciplinary backgrounds will guide throughout the entire period the study. The goal is to co-create a scalable and sustainable district model that can bring down anaemia prevalence to 20 per cent or lower, while also addressing non-nutritional causes, supply chain bottlenecks, testing gaps, and community engagement issues. The implementing team, the learning team and the outcome monitoring team will work coherently with the district and state administration for successful control of anemia in the district. Real-time anemia status will be assessed in five phases during the study period, so that the findings can be unequivocally validated in real-life settings.
PRAKASH represents a timely and strategic opportunity to align the national research priorities with real-life public health practices, and to contribute meaningfully to achievement of national health goals through context-sensitive and evidence-based interventions.
We look forward to sharing more updates as the project progresses.