Many effective public health interventions succeed because they are embedded into systems families already use.

Over many years of clinical practice, Prof. Dr. Alongkone Phengsavanh observed that young children regularly attended health services for immunisation and growth monitoring, yet iron deficiency often remained undetected until symptoms became more severe. This highlighted a fundamental gap: without routine screening, IDA would remain invisible in primary care.

The opportunity for change lays in a system that already reaches every child and caregiver nationwide, the Mother and Child Monitoring Book, commonly known as the ‘Pink Book’. As a nationally trusted child health record led by the Ministry of Health, the Pink Book defines what frontline health workers monitor, record, and act upon during routine visits.

Working with the Ministry of Health, and with technical support from UNICEF, Prof. Dr. Alongkone Phengsavanh and IronUp! worked to embed non-invasive, evidence based iron deficiency screening into routine child health services. A key milestone was integrating the Iron Intake Questionnaire (IronQ) into the Laos Pink Book, institutionalizing iron deficiency risk assessment as part of everyday child health care and marking a clear shift from reactive treatment to proactive prevention. By incorporating iron deficiency screening into the Pink Book, screening became standardized and routine, rather than dependent on individual clinical discretion, frontline health workers were prompted to assess risk early, not only respond to clinical symptoms, and caregivers gained greater awareness and visibility of iron deficiency as a preventable and manageable condition

This integration changed practice at scale. Screening was no longer dependent on individual clinicians as it became part of the health system itself. Today, the Pink Book example shows how evidence based advocacy can translate into durable system change, ensuring that Iron Deficiency Anemia is no longer missed during routine child health care in Lao PDR.

From Prof. Dr. Alongkone Phengsavanh himself, “This journey has reinforced my belief that when evidence-based screening is embedded within national systems, we do more than strengthen health policy, we protect children’s development and invest in the future of our society.”