An mHealth voice messaging intervention to improve infant and young child feeding practices in Senegal

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions have the potential to improve infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices; however, gaps in the literature remain regarding their design, implementation, and effectiveness. The aims of this study were to design an mHealth voice messaging intervention delivered to mothers and fathers targeting IYCF practices and examine its implementation and impact in households with children 6–23 months in three rural villages in Senegal. We conducted focus groups (n = 6) to inform the intervention development. We then conducted a pilot study (n = 47 households) to examine the impact of the intervention on IYCF practices of children 6–23 months. Voice messages were sent to the children's mothers and fathers over a period of 4 weeks (two messages per week; eight messages in total), and 24‐hr dietary recalls and food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) were conducted before and immediately after the implementation of the mHealth intervention to examine its impact on IYCF practices. Overall, three of the eight behaviours increased and one decreased. There was a significant increase in the number of children that consumed fish (60% vs. 94%; p = .008) as measured by the 24‐hr recall after the completion of the intervention. We also found significantly higher frequency of egg (p = .026), fish (p = .004), and thick porridge (p = .002) consumption in the previous 7 days measured by the FFQ. Our findings suggest that voice messaging IYCF interventions in Senegal have the potential to improve IYCF behaviours among young children in the short term. Future research should entail scaling‐up the intervention and examining its sustainability over the long‐term.

Food Environment Typology: Advancing an Expanded Definition, Framework, and Methodological Approach for Improved Characterization of Wild, Cultivated, and Built Food Environments toward Sustainable Diets

“…The objectives of this concept paper were addressed on the basis of the following: (1) multiple literature reviews; (2) extensive field observations carrying out food environment research in diverse socio-ecological contexts in low-, middle-, and high-income countries by the study team; (3) interactions with field experts during workshops, symposium, and conferences on the topic of food environments; and (4) classroom experiences teaching graduate students on the topic of food environments. Collectively, our study team has carried out food environment research in a range of low-, middle-, and high-income countries including rural and tribal communities in Asia (China [39][40][41][42][43], India [44][45][46], Nepal [28], and Myanmar [47]), Africa (Kenya [48], Senegal [49], and Tanzania [50]), and North America (Waskaganish, Quebec [51] and Flathead Reservation, Montana [22,36,[52][53][54][55][56]). Our field work in these communities have included mixed-methods to capture the key elements of the food environment types and how consumers interact with those environments.…”

Engaging family members in maternal, infant and young child nutrition activities in low‐ and middle‐income countries: A systematic scoping review

“…The formative research methods included focus group discussions, in‐depth interviews, and Trials of Improved Practices. Four used the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajike et al, 2020 ; Downs et al, 2019 ; Gu et al, 2016 ; Rempel et al, 2017 ), two used the Theory of Reasoned Action (Hoddinott et al, 2018 ; Nguyen et al, 2018 ), two used Social Cognitive Theory (Rabiepoor et al, 2019 ; Singla et al, 2015 ), two used the socioecological model (DeLorme et al, 2018 ; Mukuria et al, 2016 ), two used theoretical concepts related to social support and social networks (Bootsri & Taneepanichskul, 2017 ; Martin et al, 2017 ), one used the transtheoretical model (Salasibew et al, 2019 ), and one used the Beliefs, Attitudes, Subjective Norms and Enabling Factors (BASNEF) model (Akbarzadeh et al, 2015 ). Four studies based intervention design on multiple theories and constructs (Aidam et al, 2020 ; Aubel, 2012 ; Hoddinott et al, 2018 ; H. S. Kim et al, 2016 ; Nguyen et al, 2019 ).…”

Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research

“…They were primarily text messaging based including goal-targeted exercise programmes. One study did use mHealth for malnutrition prevention, but the study focused on improving infant and child feeding practices and therefore did not match the criteria outlined ( 69 ). There is therefore a need to build mHealth interventions for children and adolescents in SSA that are technologically on par with similar applications in HICs.…”