Nurturing Care Framework and Implementation Science: Promoting Nutrition, Health and Development among Infants and...

The first 1,000 days are a critical period in children's early growth and development, with long lasting negative consequences for children who do not reach their developmental potential. The nurturing care framework has been proposed as a blueprint for policies, programs, and services to provide an enabling environment for caregivers and communities to ensure that young children receive the nutrition, healthcare, early learning opportunities, responsive caregiving, and safety and security that they need to reach their developmental potential. In traditional academic research, the translation of research-to-practice is rarely the target of investigation and is often left to policy makers or program implementers to determine how to implement evidence-based interventions. Implementation science is the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research into practice. This chapter reviews how implementation science can be used to enhance nutrition education through the nurturing care framework and advance children's early growth and -development.