NCT02775552

Impact Evaluation of a Multi-Sectoral Community-Based Approach to Improving Infant and Young Child Feeding in Amhara, Ethiopia

Impact Evaluation of Alive & Thrive's Multi-Sectoral Community-Based Approach to Improving Infant and Young Child Feeding in Amhara, Ethiopia

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 3,120 (actual)
• Sponsor: International Food Policy Research Institute · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 15 Years – 49 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Alive \& Thrive is an initiative that aims to scale up nutrition to save lives, prevent illness, and ensure healthy growth and development through improved infant young child feeding (IYCF) practices. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the Alive \& Thrive intervention package, consisting of interpersonal communication, community mobilization activities, and radio campaign, can increase complementary feeding practices (minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency) while sustaining exclusive breastfeeding rate among children less than two years of age. The impact evaluation uses a cluster-randomized design where 20 geographic clusters (woredas/districts) were randomized to two study arms - 10 intervention areas and 10 comparison areas. Repeated cross-sectional baseline and endline surveys will be used to assess program impact.

Detailed description

In Amhara, the median duration of exclusive breastfeeding (4.6 months) is the highest among all the other regions in the country, but complementary feeding indicators lag behind (2% minimum dietary diversity and 34% minimum meal frequency). As a result, A\&T's program emphasis will be placed on increasing mothers' knowledge and skills to improve complementary feeding practices without compromising exclusive breastfeeding. Given the short duration of implementation, the goal is to show that it is possible to achieve behavior change related to IYCF through a multi-sector approach. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the Alive \& Thrive intervention package, consisting of interpersonal communication, community mobilization activities, and radio campaign, can increase select complementary feeding practices (minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency increased by 10 percentage points) while sustaining exclusive breastfeeding rate among children less than two years of age. A cluster randomized design with repeated cross-sectional surveys at baseline (2015) and endline (2017) is used to assess impact of the A\&T interventions in three western zones of Amhara, Ethiopia. In the three zones, 20 woredas (districts) were randomly assigned as 10 intervention and 10 comparison/control areas. A\&T intervention areas are expected to receive intensive IYCF social and behavior change communication activities as well as exposure to a region-wide radio campaign. In accordance with program objectives, sample sizes for the household survey were estimated to detect changes in the three main impact indicators - sustained exclusive breastfeeding, improved minimum dietary diversity, and improved minimum meal frequency. The estimated household sample sizes are 400 children 0-5.9 months old for exclusive breastfeeding in the A\&T intervention areas only and 1350 children 6-23.9 months old per study arm for complementary feeding practices, for a total sample size of 3100 children 0-23.9 months of age. Infant feeding practices will be assessed using before- and after- intervention-comparison area group differences between the baseline survey (March-April 2015) and endline survey (March-April 2017). In addition, surveys of frontline workers will help document their awareness and knowledge about IYCF, training, supervision, and delivery of interventions to beneficiary households.

Conditions

• Exclusive Breastfeeding
• Complementary Feeding

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	A&T community-based interventions	1. Interpersonal communication delivered by health workers and community volunteers at the health post and during home visits to: \- Increase mothers' knowledge about adequate child feeding practices 2. Interpersonal communication delivered by agricultural extension workers to: \- Increase fathers' knowledge about nutrition-sensitive agriculture and child feeding 3. Community mobilization activities to: * Raise awareness of child feeding practices among community members, and increase support to mothers (enhanced community conversations) * Increase mothers' knowledge about preparation of complementary foods (cooking demonstrations) * Raise awareness of adequate child feeding during fasting among family and community members (church sermons) 4. Enhanced training of government health and agricultural extension workers in infant and young child feeding to: * Improve their ability to provide timely and appropriate information and support to mothers and families
BEHAVIORAL	Mass media	Radio campaign - radio drama series, spots, and jingles

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-03-01
• Primary completion: 2017-04-01
• Completion: 2017-04-01
• First posted: 2016-05-17
• Last updated: 2018-02-27

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Ethiopia