The association between exposure to a radio campaign on nutrition and mothers' nutrition- and health-related attitudes and minimal acceptable diet of children 6-36 months old: a quasi-experimental trial

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a radio campaign involving serial 10-minute drama episodes, 10-minute on air discussion of each episode by trained community health workers and 30-minute phone-ins from listeners in improving mothers' nutrition- and health-related attitudes (HNRAs) and children's minimum acceptable diet (MAD).

Design: A two-arm quasi-experimental trial with a pre-post design was used to quantify the effect of a radio campaign on nutrition before and immediately after the 6-month intervention. Difference-in-difference (DID) analysis was performed to assess the intervention's effect.

Setting: Saboba district (intervention) and Central Gonja (comparison district) of northern region of Ghana.

Participants: At baseline, a total of 598 mothers with children aged 6-22 months were randomly selected from the intervention (n 298) and control (n 300) districts. At endline (6 months post-intervention), 252 mother-child dyads in the intervention district and 275 mother-child dyads in the control district were followed up.

Results: The radio campaign was significantly and positively associated with a change in health- and nutrition-related attitudes (HNRA) over time, with DID in mean attitudes significantly improving more over time in the intervention district than the control (DID = 1·398, P < 0·001). Also, the prevalence of MAD over time in the intervention district was significantly higher than the control district (DID = 16·1 percentage points, P = 0·02) in the presence of food insecurity.

Conclusions: The study indicates that a radio campaign on nutrition is associated with improved mothers' HNRA and children's MAD. Communication interventions on child nutrition targeting low-resource settings should consider this innovative approach.