Characterising infant and young child feeding practices and the consumption of poultry products in rural Tanzania: A mixed methods approach

Abstract

Suboptimal breastfeeding practices, early initiation of complementary feeding, and monotonous cereal-based diets have been implicated as contributors to continuing high rates of child undernutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. Nutrition-sensitive interventions, including agricultural programs that increase access to nutrient-rich vegetables, legumes, and animal-source foods, have the potential to achieve sustainable improvements in children's diets. In the quest to evaluate the efficacy of such programs in improving growth and development in the first 2 years of life, there is a role for mixed methods research to better understand existing infant and young child feeding practices. This analysis forms part of a longitudinal study assessing the impact of improvements to poultry health and crop production on diets and growth of 503 randomly selected children from eight rural communities in Manyoni District in central Tanzania. Using an explanatory sequential design, the quantitative phase of data collection was conducted between May 2014 and May 2016, comprising six monthly structured questionnaires, four monthly household-level documentation of chicken and egg consumption, and fortnightly records of children's breastfeeding status. The subsequent qualitative phase involved in-depth interviews with a subset of 39 mothers in October 2016. Breastfeeding was almost universal (96.8%) and of long duration (mean = 21.7 months, SD = 3.6), but early initiation of complementary feeding was also common (74.4%; mean = 4.0 months, SD = 1.8), overwhelmingly driven by maternal perceptions of insufficient milk supply (95.0%). Chicken and eggs were infrequently eaten, but close associations between maternal and child consumption patterns (p < .001) suggest the potential for strategies that increase household-level consumption to bring nutritional benefits to young children.

Small‐scale egg production centres increase children's egg consumption in rural Zambia

“…Instead, smallholders demonstrated a strong preference for leaving eggs from village chickens to hatch, increasing flock sizes, and allowing them to more readily sell birds as needed (Dumas et al, ). This phenomenon has been reported elsewhere (de Bruyn et al, ; Dumas et al, ; Gueye, ; Olney, Vicheka, Kro, & Chakriya, ) and is a major limitation to the use of village poultry as a tool for increasing egg availability and consumption. Additionally, there is an emerging concern that free‐ranging poultry can negatively affect child nutrition outcomes by exposing them to zoonotic pathogens that cause clinical disease (e.g., diarrhoea; Zambrano, Levy, Menezes, & Freeman, ) or environmental enteric dysfunction (Gelli et al, ; George, Oldja, Biswas, Perin, Lee, Ahmed, et al, ; George, Oldja, Biswas, Perin, Lee, Kosek, et al, ; Headey & Hirvonen, ; Marquis et al, ; Ngure et al, ).…”

“…Third—perhaps most importantly—as a means of offsetting high flock mortality, smallholders have repeatedly demonstrated a preference for allowing eggs from village chickens to hatch rather than consuming them at home (de Bruyn et al, ; Dumas et al, ; Dumas et al, ; Gueye, ; Olney et al, ). The multipurpose utility of poultry (as a source of food, income, and resilience in the face of shocks) requires a daily cost–benefit analysis on the part of the smallholder, who must weight the many demands of their household in the face of limited resources (Pell & Kristjanson, ).…”

Does Village Chicken-Keeping Contribute to Young Children’s Diets and Growth? A Longitudinal Observational Study in Rural Tanzania

“…This supports findings elsewhere in African communities accustomed to high levels of mortality in scavenging chicken flocks, where households prioritize the hatching of eggs for replacement stock and retention of chickens for sale in times over home consumption [ 55 , 56 ]. Previous qualitative work in the study setting found no currently-held beliefs or cultural constraints to explain provide other explanations for infrequent egg consumption [ 57 ].…”

Participatory Epidemiology: Principles, Practice, Utility, and Lessons Learnt

“…This review describes the evolution of PE (in relation to veterinary epidemiology and briefly in relation to public health epidemiology), the underpinning philosophy and principles essential to its effective application, and highlights the importance of gender-sensitive approaches and data triangulation, including conventional confirmatory testing. It discusses the importance of understanding social perceptions and drivers, which is receiving increasing recognition by epidemiologists, and provides examples as to how PE tools are being adapted for an increasingly wide range of settings and endeavors, including: use in food and nutrition security programs ( 5 – 7 ); One Health activities ( 8 ); wildlife disease surveillance ( 9 ); gender analysis ( 10 , 11 ); communication ( 12 , 13 ); and for monitoring and evaluation ( 14 ).…”