Hi dear, 
My Name is Biruk Tadesse (National Emergency Nutrition and NiS Specialist)

I have been using the ENA for SMART software for the past five years and have become quite familiar with its functionalities. During this time, I have successfully conducted over five SMART surveys in various countries.

The ENA for SMART software is designed to calculate sample sizes for assessing the prevalence of acute and chronic malnutrition based on specific criteria. It ensures that the sample size is determined with a 95% confidence interval (CI), which is a standard practice within the application. The level of confidence used in ENA is always 95%. This 95% confidence level indicates that, in the absence of bias, we can be certain that the true population value of the measured indicator falls within the calculated confidence interval.  

Best,

 To calculate the sample size for a SMART survey, you can use either the single population proportion or double population proportion formula. Additionally, consider the prevalence of malnutrition based on previous studies or pilot data. If no prior information is available, use 50% as a proxy for the prevalence. Apply a 95% confidence interval and a 5% margin of error for accurate results.

Dear Anonymous,

Yes, you can use ENA for SMART to calculate a SAMPLE size for a Nutrition cluster survey having the main objective of estimating Stunting estimates.

However, the Sample size calculation formula used by in the 'planning' sheet of ENA has correction factor of 10% corresponding to the difference beteween '% children under 5' (meaning 0-59 month) and the '%GAM estimated among the 6-59 month'. This 10% correct the difference between 0-59 and 6-59 month.

I suspect, your Stunting estimates would target de 0-59 month. If this is the case, DO NOT USE the ENA for SMART Sample size calculation formula.

You can just recreate the formula into an excel sheet and drop off the 10% :

Please download Here the manual named "Sampling Methods & Sample size calculation for the SMART methodology." > See page 14 of this manual > just drop off this "0.9 = fraction of 6-59 months children within the under 5 age category" and apply the formula.

I hope this is usefull!?

Best of luck for the survey