Interactions of Enteric Infections and Malnutrition and the Consequences for Child Health and Development

Malnutrition is considered one of the most prevalent risk factors for morbidity and mortality in children under five. An estimated 20% of children in the developing world are malnourished \[1\] and poor nutrition is linked to more than half of all child deaths worldwide \[2\]. Malnutrition in early childhood may lead to cognitive and physical deficits and may cause similar deficits in future generations as malnourished mothers give birth to low birth weight children \[3\]. In addition, malnutrition increases susceptibility and incidence of infections and is associated with diminished response to vaccines. The MAL-ED Project is designed to determine the impact of enteric infections/diarrhea that alter gut function and impair children's nutrition, growth and development to help develop new intervention strategies that can break the vicious enteric infection-malnutrition cycle and reduce its global burden. The overall objective of the MAL-ED Project is to quantify the associations of specific enteric pathogens, measures of physical and mental development, micronutrient malnutrition, gut function biomarkers, the gut microbiome, and immune responses in very young children in resource-limited settings across eight sites that vary by culture, economics, geography, and climate. The central hypothesis of the MAL-ED Project is that infection (and co-infection) with specific enteropathogens leads to impaired growth and development and to diminished immune response to orally administered vaccines by causing intestinal inflammation and/or by altering intestinal barrier and absorptive function. Data analyses will test for associations between enteropathogen infections and growth/development to help illuminate: * which micro-organisms or mixed infections are most frequently associated with growth faltering and poor development; and * at what age specific infections cause the most disruption to growth and development and impair immune response.