Research report: Design, uptake, and adaptation of a curated global infant and young child feeding digital health education course to capacitate frontline health workers

A global e-learning course for training frontline health workers in infant and young child feeding reached about 2,000 enrollees from 106 countries between June 2019 and January 2021, according to a research article describing the course’s design, uptake and adaptation. The package, developed by Alive & Thrive and partners, is designed to strengthen health workers’ capacity to provide skilled counseling on breastfeeding and complementary feeding. An Arabic-language country adaptation launched in Jordan in 2023 recorded 1,123 enrollees from 33 countries by June 2024.

These figures describe access to and uptake of the training resource; the supplied study abstract does not establish changes in health workers’ counseling performance or in child nutrition outcomes. The project addressed practical barriers that can limit conventional infant and young child feeding training. Health workers may encounter restrictions caused by fixed schedules, inaccessible training locations and inadequate proficiency in the language in which instruction is delivered.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of e-learning platforms for health-worker training highlighted potential advantages including flexibility in time, place and schedule, broader access for learners, standardized course delivery and monitoring of course completion. In response to a recognized gap in accessible online guidance and support for capacity strengthening in infant and young child feeding, Alive & Thrive and its partners curated training materials from authoritative health organizations and organized them into a practical, competency-based, self-paced digital course. Course development followed the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation, or ADDIE, model.

The partners worked with a digital solutions service provider and a technical steering committee composed of international experts to convert available materials into an e-learning format. The resulting package was titled “IYCF E-learning Course: Investing in Child Nutrition” and was produced in Arabic, English and French. Its self-paced structure allows learners to engage with the material without following a fixed live teaching schedule.

Users supplied positive feedback on two aspects of the package: the inclusive nature of its content and imagery, and the breadth of resources it made available. The course is currently hosted on the UNICEF Agora platform. The Jordan adaptation demonstrates that a globally developed package can be translated and modified for a specific country context.

The country version was translated into Arabic in 2023, and uptake monitoring through June 2024 identified 1,123 enrollees representing 33 countries. The adaptation therefore extended the multilingual course into an Arabic country-specific format, while participation data show that learners from multiple countries used that version. The research presents the course as an extensive e-learning package with demonstrated utility for country-level or local adaptation.

The reported findings concern its design and observed uptake, rather than a comparative test of instructional effectiveness. Enrolment and user feedback provide evidence of reach and perceived value, but they should not be treated as proof that the course changed health-worker behavior, improved the technical quality of counseling or produced better feeding practices among children. The supplied article abstract does not present results from a randomized comparison, a controlled assessment of learning gains or an evaluation of downstream child health outcomes, so no such effect can be attributed to the course from the reported data alone.

Its strongest demonstrated contribution is to make standardized, competency-based infant and young child feeding education available through a multilingual digital package and to show that the package can be adapted for a national setting.

Subject of Research: Design, uptake and country adaptation of a digital infant and young child feeding course for frontline health workers

Article Title: Design, uptake, and adaptation of a curated global infant and young child feeding digital health education course to capacitate frontline health workers

Article References: Zambrano, P., Pellechia, K., Haider, R., Datu-Sanguyo, J., Nguyen, T. T., Al-Samman, S., Albukhari, Z., Huynh, P. N., Chin, S., & Mathisen, R. (2026). Design, uptake, and adaptation of a curated global infant and young child feeding digital health education course to capacitate frontline health workers. BMC Medical Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-026-10650-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12909-026-10650-8

Keywords: infant and young child feeding, e-learning, health worker training, breastfeeding counseling, complementary feeding, digital health education, course adaptation, Jordan, multilingual training, UNICEF Agora, Design, uptake