Acceptability of community-based growth monitoring in a rural village in South Africa.

Abstract

In rural areas, a lack of infrastructure often limits the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities. Growth monitoring can potentially provide a platform for the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities, provided that the growth-monitoring program has a high coverage. The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability of a community-based growth-monitoring project in terms of child attendance and maternal attitude. The study was done in a mountainous rural village that lacks health facilities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Attendance registers from 1996 to 2000 were used to determine the attendance ratio, coverage, adequacy of growth monitoring, and frequency distribution of the age of participating children. In 2001, focus group discussions were used for the qualitative assessment of maternal attitudes. The community-based growth-monitoring project had an estimated coverage of 90%, at least 60% of these children were covered adequately, and attendance was equally distributed over one-year-interval age categories for children aged five years and younger. Community-based growth monitoring can therefore provide a suitable platform for the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities.