Effects on childhood infections of promoting safe and hygienic complementary-food handling practices through a community-based programme: A cluster randomised controlled trial in a rural area of The Gambia

by Semira Manaseki-Holland, Buba Manjang, Karla Hemming, James T. Martin, Christopher Bradley, Louise Jackson, Makie Taal, Om Prasad Gautam, Francesca Crowe, Bakary Sanneh, Jeroen Ensink, Tim Stokes, Sandy Cairncross BackgroundThe Gambia has high rates of under-5 mortality from diarrhoea and pneumonia, peaking during complementary-feeding age. Community-based interventions may reduce complementary-food contamination and disease rates. Methods and findingsA public health intervention using critical control points and motivational drivers, delivered February –April 2015 in The Gambia, was evaluated in a cluster randomised controlled trial at 6- and 32-month follow-up in September–October 2015 and October–December 2017, respectively. After consent for trial participation and baseline data were collected, 30 villages (clusters) were randomly assigne d to intervention or control, stratified by population size and geography. The intervention included a community-wide campaign on days 1, 2, 17, and 25, a reminder visit at 5 months, plus informal community-volunteer home visits. It promoted 5 key complementary-food and 1 key drinking-water safety a nd hygiene behaviours through performing arts, public meetings, and certifications delivered by a team from local health and village structures to all villagers who attended the activities, to which mothers of 6- to 24-month-old children were specifically invited. Control villages received a 1-day c ampaign on domestic-garden water u...
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research