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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Vartika Singh

Vartika Singh is a Senior Research Analyst in the Natural Resources and Resilience Unit, based in New Delhi, and a Senior Research Officer at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. She is currently a doctoral candidate at Humboldt University in Berlin and a guest researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany. Her research interest is in the nexus of food-water-energy and land. 

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Nutrition, Diets, and Health

Soyra Gune

Research Analyst

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Bio

Soyra Gune is a Research Analyst in the Nutrition Diets, and Health Unit, based in New Delhi. She supports IFPRI’s research on nutrition, diets, and health in India and more recently, in Bangladesh and Nepal. Her research in India involves secondary data analysis of large-scale datasets on health and nutrition. Another strand of her research involves the recommendation of statistical methods to researchers who work on health and nutrition topics in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In addition, she has engaged and collaborated with stakeholders such as Campbell South Asia, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), UNICEF, the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), and All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on projects related to maternal and child nutrition, and she has presented IFPRI’s work at national nutrition forums.

Soyra also supports the work of CGIAR’s Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT) Research Initiative in Viet Nam, where she is working on the evaluation of a school meal program innovation in secondary schools. In addition, she is interested in evaluating the effectiveness of system-strengthening approaches to improve the delivery of health and nutrition interventions in LMICs, as well as in understanding the impact of intrahousehold dynamics on women’s access to healthcare.

Before joining IFPRI, she completed her MSc (with distinction) in economics from the University of Warwick, where she was jointly awarded the Shiv Nath prize for best performance in development economics, and her BA (with honors) in economics with a minor in development and sustainability from Azim Premji University, India.

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Google Scholar Citations

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Publications

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Journal Article

Methods for estimating beneficiary populations targeted by health and nutrition interventions for women, pregnant women, infants, and young children

2025Gune, Soyra; Nguyen, Phuong; Chakrabarti, Suman
Details

Methods for estimating beneficiary populations targeted by health and nutrition interventions for women, pregnant women, infants, and young children

Utilization of maternal and child interventions is typically tracked in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) using coverage estimates from population representative surveys. These estimates cannot be directly applied to assess resource gaps in intervention delivery for which data on the population eligible is required. Moreover, coverage improvements may not necessarily reflect an expansion in utilization because of a decline in the population eligible. We develop a method to estimate the populations eligible for interventions across the continuum of care. The method uses data from the World Population Prospects and the Demographic Health Survey, data sources which are available for most LMICs. Additionally, we develop a method to estimate the eligible population covered by each intervention. Using the illustration of India, we estimate populations eligible for, and covered by interventions during preconception, pregnancy, delivery, lactation, and childhood. We find that between 2015 and 2020, the eligible population declined for all beneficiary groups. Additionally, coverage expansion was not entirely driven by an increase in the population accessing an intervention, but rather also by a decline in the eligible population. Our illustration highlights the importance of including population estimates alongside coverage for interventions, particularly in LMIC contexts due to changing fertility dynamics.

Year published

2025

Authors

Gune, Soyra; Nguyen, Phuong; Chakrabarti, Suman

Citation

Gune, Soyra; Nguyen, Phuong; and Chakrabarti, Suman. Methods for estimating beneficiary populations targeted by health and nutrition interventions for women, pregnant women, infants, and young children. American Journal of Epidemiology. Article in press. First published online December 27, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwae469

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Capacity Development; Maternal and Child Health; Methods; Nutrition; Population

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwae469 Source record

Project

Foresight

Record type

Journal Article

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Journal Article

Assessing progress on the coverage of interventions in the first 1000 days in India: Role of national programs

2024
Avula, Rasmi; Nguyen, Phuong; Christopher, Anita; Gune, Soyra; Bhatia, Neena; Chauhan, Alka; Dwivedi, L. K.; Kapur, Avani; Pedgaonkar, Sarang; Shukla, Ritwik
…more Chakrabarti, Suman; Singh, Shri Kant; Menon, Purnima
Details

Assessing progress on the coverage of interventions in the first 1000 days in India: Role of national programs

Background High coverage of nutrition-specific interventions is critical to meet global nutrition targets, and it is imperative to understand how to attain it. We examined trends and inequalities in the coverage of interventions in India and the role of the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) in achieving improvements. Methods We conducted trends and equity analysis of 30 interventions using two rounds of National Family Health Survey data (2015–2016, n=1 78 874, and 2019–2021, n=1 70 697). We also compared coverage between states that received incentives and monitoring under NNM and those that did not. We reviewed programme documents and grey literature to construct a policy timeline to trace pathways to coverage improvement and consulted with stakeholders to confirm interpretation of findings. Findings Between 2016 and 2021, coverage improved significantly for nearly all interventions (~1–22 percentage points (pp) during pregnancy, ~7–20 pp during delivery/postpartum and~5–17 pp during early childhood). Improvements in coverage were higher among the poor and in rural areas compared with the rich and in urban areas, respectively; wealth and residence gaps narrowed for most interventions. These improvements could be traced to community mobilisation, technology and monitoring under NNM. Improvements in coverage of growth monitoring and counselling were higher in states that received additional incentives and monitoring under NNM. Stakeholders concurred that the improvements in coverage were likely driven by NNM. Interpretation Focused policy attention and programmatic efforts improved coverage and reduced inequities indicating an inclusive approach. Persistent coverage gaps for certain interventions require further inquiry.

Year published

2024

Authors

Avula, Rasmi; Nguyen, Phuong; Christopher, Anita; Gune, Soyra; Bhatia, Neena; Chauhan, Alka; Dwivedi, L. K.; Kapur, Avani; Pedgaonkar, Sarang; Shukla, Ritwik; Chakrabarti, Suman; Singh, Shri Kant; Menon, Purnima

Citation

Avula, Rasmi; Nguyen, Phuong; Christopher, Anita; Gune, Soyra; Bhatia, Bhatia; Chauhan, Alka; et al. 2024. Assessing progress on the coverage of interventions in the first 1000 days in India: role of national programs. Assessing progress on the coverage of interventions in the first 1000 days in India: Role of national programs. BMJ Global Health 9(12): e015246. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2024-015246

Country/Region

India

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Data; Maternal and Child Health; Nutrition; Research Methods

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Links

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2024-015246 Source record

Project

National Policies and Strategies

Record type

Journal Article

Resource thumbnail

Data Paper

Status of nutrition in Nepal: Trends in outcomes, determinants and coverage of interventions between 2016 and 2022

2024
Kapoor, Rati; Gupta, Monali; Gune, Soyra; Christopher, Anita; Nguyen, Phuong; Neupane, Sumanta; Thapa, Lila Bikram; Ghale, Yamuna; Ratanapruck, Prista; Rana, Pooja Pandey
…more Cunningham, Kenda; Saville, Naomi; Avula, Rasmi
Details

Status of nutrition in Nepal: Trends in outcomes, determinants and coverage of interventions between 2016 and 2022

This Country Profile describes the trends in key nutrition outcomes, their determinants, and coverage of nutrition and health interventions during critical life stages for women and children in Nepal at the national and province level. The findings are based on the 2016 and 2022 data from Nepal’s Demographic and Health Surveys. Bar graphs were used to visualize national trends, maps and color-coded dashboards illustrate province-level trends. The purpose of the profile is to be an easily interpretable reference for nutrition stakeholders in Nepal.

Year published

2024

Authors

Kapoor, Rati; Gupta, Monali; Gune, Soyra; Christopher, Anita; Nguyen, Phuong; Neupane, Sumanta; Thapa, Lila Bikram; Ghale, Yamuna; Ratanapruck, Prista; Rana, Pooja Pandey; Cunningham, Kenda; Saville, Naomi; Avula, Rasmi

Citation

Kapoor, Rati; Gupta, Monali; Gune, Soyra; Christopher, Anita; Nguyen, Phuong; Thapa, Lila Bikram; et al. 2024. Status of nutrition in Nepal: Trends in outcomes, determinants and coverage of interventions between 2016 and 2022. SANI Data Note 1. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/155057

Country/Region

Nepal

Keywords

Asia; Southern Asia; Children; Data; Nutrition; Surveys; Women

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Data Paper

Blogs

Comprehensive sanitation in India: Despite progress, an unfinished agenda
IFPRI Blog
 | 
October 23, 2024

Comprehensive sanitation in India: Despite progress, an unfinished agenda

By Suman Chakrabarti, Soyra Gune, Tim A. Bruckner, Julie Strominger, and Parvati Singh

Building on improvements in Infant mortality.

News

September 05, 2024 | In the News

Swachh Bharat Mission averted 60,000-70,000 infant deaths between 2011 & 2020, shows Nature study (The Print)

IFPRI Researchers analyzed infant & under-5 mortality data from 35 states, 640 districts. Research praised by PM Modi on X.