Abstract
ABSTRACTDespite the efforts to promote good practices in infant and young child feeding (IYCF), the adoption of such practices has been low. Using data from a sample of 665 women, and the theory of planned behavior, we examine the effect of different types of nutrition education and psychosocial factors on the use of recommended IYCF practices. Regression results show that nutrition education and psychosocial factors have strong positive effect on the extent to which IYCF practices are used, with the latter having conflicting individual but overall positive effect. Moreover, coefficients of latter were mostly less than those of the former indicating that pschosocial factors were less important in explaining variability in usage of IYCF than the nutrition education variables. It further finds that different sets of nutrition education and psychosocial factors affect different categories of women, with interactive nutrition education approaches having a greater effect. The findings also suggest need for targeting of beneficiaries with multiple nutrition education approaches.
Highlights
Most nutrition interventions aimed at combating nutrient deficiency such as vitamin A deficiency among young children target caregivers’ behavior change relating to infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices
We focus on a large community-level agriculture-nutrition intervention that used a combination of nutrition education and social and behavior communication strategies to improve IYCF practices among different categories of women in western Kenya
The results further show that nutrition messaging/health talks during the ANC/PNC increased the expected number of IYCF practices used by about 52%, other things constant
Summary
Most nutrition interventions aimed at combating nutrient deficiency such as vitamin A deficiency among young children target caregivers’ behavior change relating to infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. This study uses a rich data set collected as part of a comprehensive study of the multiple factors influencing maternal and young child feeding behavior/ practices to examine the effect of nutrition education and psychosocial on the use of comprehensive IYFC practices among different categories of women. The approach adopted further allows for the assessment of the individual and combined effects of various nutrition education components (namely, individual counseling, group health talks through mother-to-mother clubs, health talks at ante/postnatal clinics, and cooking demos) We assess both the individual and combined effect of the vector of psychosocial factors (namely, knowledge, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms) on the use of IYCF practices. To assess the complex mix of economic, environmental, personal, and psychosocial factors that drive the use of recommended IYCF, we use an approach that combines all these variables in an econometric model and uses statistical methods to test their partial and joint effects on IYCF
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