Non-Recovery Rate

What: The indicator represents the proportion of all children discharged from treatment programs who did not recover (for various reasons) from the treatment programs (as per recovery and discharge criteria used). Non-recovery may be due to the child not responding to the treatment, the child being referred to another program. Why: Non-recovery is an undesirable outcome of a treatment program and it flags persisting underlying causes of malnutrition. One of the core performance indicators to measure the quality of treatment of moderate and severe acute malnutrition. When: To measure the outcome and quality of CMAM (MAM and SAM) treatment programs.

Divide the number of referrals (non-response plus medical referrals plus transfers) by the total number of children discharged and multiply the result by 100. The resulting number is the non-recovery rate (in percentage).

Disaggregate the data by gender, treatment location/ geographic area, age group and (if relevant) specific vulnerable groups, such as children from minority groups. Note, disaggregation by gender is only possible if the CMAM database records cases in this way.  

Some programs may like to report separately the specific category of non-recovery.

1) The indicator does not require a separate survey – all data can be gained from the treatment program’s regular records (registration book) and may be calculated in the CMAM database.

2) The four core performance indicators of an malnutrition treatment program (esp. the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition, CMAM), including supplementary feeding programs (SFP) and outpatient therapeutic program (OTP) and inpatient program or stabilization center (IP/ SC)) are recovery rate, death rate, defaulter rate and non-recovery rate. They need to be reported together because they are interlinked (should add up to 100%).