Change in Child-feeding Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices With Nutrition Education Mass Media in Ghana

Optimal infant and young child feeding practices are largely inadequate in rural and poor households in Ghana. Child welfare clinics (CWCs) focus on immunization, supplementation, and growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) activities among infants and young children (IYC). An essential component of GMP activities is to counsel mothers to practice optimal IYC feeding and health practices, but most of the time this is completely missing or not specific enough to be effective. This study will test the effect of a mass media nutrition education program on caregiver infant and young child feeding knowledge, attitudes and practices using a community-based cluster randomized design. Formative research will first be undertaken to determine the beliefs, attitudes, and constraints that prevent caregivers from adequately feeding their infants and young children with members of the community (caregivers with children under-five, men and elderly women).The information gathered will then be used to design specific messages that directly address the IYC feeding challenges of the community. Clusters will be randomized into active (radio messages with in-person engagement and follow-up) and passive (only radio messages) arms of the intervention. Farm Radio International (implementers of the mass media programming) will ensure the regular broadcast of twice weekly messages for a period of about 12-18 months.