POLICY BRIEF article
Front. Glob. Women’s Health
Sec. Maternal Health
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2025.1684392
Addressing Anaemia in Adivasi Women of Reproductive Age: Urgent Policy Imperatives for Karnataka
Provisionally accepted
Prafulla Shriyan1*
Rahul Amruthapuri2Chandrashekar Kottagi2
Prashanth NS2
Giridhara R Babu3Tanya Seshadri2Pooja Aggarwal2,4
Deepa Bhat4Suresh S Shapeti1- 1Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi, India
- 2Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru, India
- 3Department of Population Medicine, College of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University., DOHA, Qatar
- 4JSS Medical College, Mysuru, India
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The policy brief analyses program implementation gaps among Adivasi population in Southern Karnataka to support India's 'Anemia Mukt Bharat' and Karnataka's 'Anemia Mukt Poushtika Karnataka' initiatives which aims to improve anemia and nutrition status of the population This analysis is based on a Adivasi birth cohort. Preliminary results show higher underweight and anemia prevalence in Adivasi women than National Family Health Survey-5 estimates. A significant proportion of women also have thalassemia traits, suggesting a genetic predisposition. Given the burden of sickle cell disease and the undernutrition, an intersectoral approach is needed. A multistakeholder committee, including Adivasi women, experts from public health and nutrition, others are crucial to design culturally appropriate initiatives and prioritize hemoglobinopathy screening, ensuring effective strategies for this vulnerable population.
Keywords: Anemia, nutrition, cohort, Adivasi, hemoglobinopathy, Thalassemia trait
Received: 13 Aug 2025; Accepted: 25 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shriyan, Amruthapuri, Kottagi, NS, Babu, Seshadri, Aggarwal, Bhat and Shapeti. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Prafulla Shriyan, prafulla@phfi.org
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