Impact of community nutrition project on malnutrition in children under five: a case of SPRING Ghana project

Abstract

This study examines the effects of the Strengthening Partnership, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project on malnutrition, stunting, acute malnutrition, and underweight among children under the age of five. The project was implemented in the northern and upper-East regions of Ghana in 2014 and ended in December 2017. We employed the Difference-in-Difference (DID) estimation approach to analyze the project's impact. Our analysis showed a strong positive association between the project's effect on the probability of stunting and underweight by 11% (p=0.01) and 9% (p=0.003), respectively, in the treated regions compared with the untreated regions. However, we found no evidence of the project’s effect on acute malnutrition. We also provide suggestive evidence that the project may have influenced child nutrition status through antenatal care attendance. This study demonstrated that tackling child nutrition deficiencies through an integrated holistic approach, such as early Antenatal Care (ANC) attendance, increased access to high-quality foods, improving women's nutrition knowledge, and improving agricultural practices, can significantly reduce childhood stunting and underweight.