Nutrition Interventions in Northern Ghana: Impacts on Mothers' Vitamin A Knowledge and Children's Vitamin A Consumption

Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in Ghana. In 2002, behavior change and communication interventions (mother-to-mother support groups), food-based interventions (including an educational program about porridge enrichment), and a microcredit intervention were implemented in Ghana's Savelugu-Nanton District with the aim of improving children's diets, including their vitamin A consumption. Using data from a 2004 survey, we examine the interventions' influences on mothers' vitamin A knowledge and children's vitamin A consumption. We measure both intent to treat impacts of exogenously assigned combinations of the interventions being present in a community and treatment effects of mothers participating in different interventions on mothers' vitamin A knowledge and children's vitamin A consumption. Considering the results of the two approaches together allows us to draw several conclusions: Mothers' participation in the mother-to-mother support groups is associated with children consuming eggs and red palm oil (two vitamin A rich foods) more frequently, higher total frequency of consumption of vitamin A rich foods, and children consuming more vitamin A from foods emphasized in the interventions. Mothers' participation in the porridge enrichment component of the food-based interventions is associated with greater knowledge of vitamin A among mothers and more frequent egg consumption among children. Mothers' participation in the microcredit intervention is associated with children consuming egg more frequently and children consuming more vitamin A from foods emphasized in the interventions. Mother's participation in either the mother-to-mother support groups or the microcredit intervention is associated with the child consuming an additional 10% of her recommended daily allowance of vitamin A. Other determinants of children's consumption of vitamin A rich foods include the child's age, mother's education, ethnicity, household expenditures, household cultivated land area, and the mother's vitamin A knowledge. Mothers' vitamin A knowledge, in turn, is positively associated with household access to radio, household expenditures, and participation in the porridge enrichment program. Although the association between household expenditures and children's vitamin A consumption is statistically significant, the estimated impact is small, likely due to the overall low incomes of sample households. Recommendations for future programming include increasing participation in interventions and combining vitamin A education from the porridge-enrichment intervention with a more sustained intervention like the mother-to-mother support groups or the microcredit intervention. The survey was conducted for UNICEF/IFPRI/UDS Food and Nutrition Security Project. Krista L. Jacobs was a graduate student at the University of California, Davis during the completion of this study. The findings and conclusions of ths article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the CDC or IFPRI or the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.