Effects of engaging fathers and bundling nutrition and parenting interventions on household gender equality and women's empowerment in rural Tanzania
Results from EFFECTS, a five-arm cluster-randomized controlled trial
Bibliographic Data
Advancing gender equality and women's empowerment (GE/WE) may contribute to better child nutrition and development in low-resource settings. However, few empirical studies have generated evidence on GE/WE and examined the potential of engaging men to transform gender norms and power relations in the context of nutrition and parenting programs. We tested the independent and combined effects of engaging couples and bundling nutrition and parenting interventions on GE/WE in Mara, Tanzania. EFFECTS (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03759821) was a cluster-randomized 2 × 2 factorial trial plus control. Eighty village clusters were randomly assigned to one of five intervention conditions: standard of care, mothers nutrition, couples nutrition, mothers bundled nutrition and parenting, or couples bundled nutrition and parenting. Between October 2018-May 2019, 960 households were enrolled with children under 18 months of age residing with their mother and father. Community health workers (CHWs) delivered a bi-weekly 24-session hybrid peer group/home visit gender-transformative behavior change program to either mothers or couples. GE/WE outcomes were analyzed as intention-to-treat and included time use, gender attitudes, social support, couples' communication frequency and quality, decision-making power, intimate partner violence (IPV), and women's dietary diversity (WDD). Data were collected from 957 to 815 mothers and 913 and 733 fathers at baseline and endline, respectively. Engaging couples compared to mothers only significantly increased paternal and maternal gender-equitable attitudes, paternal time spent on domestic chores, and maternal decision-making power. Bundling increased maternal leisure time, decreased maternal exposure to any IPV, and increased WDD over 7 days. A combination of engaging couples and bundling was most effective for paternal gender attitudes, couples communication frequency, and WDD over 24 h and 7 days. Our findings generate novel evidence that CHWs can deliver bundled nutrition and parenting interventions to couples in low-resource community settings that advance GE/WE more than nutrition interventions targeting only women
Cluster (spacecraft · Cluster randomised controlled trial · Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Environmental health · Psychological intervention · Randomized controlled trial · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Tanzania · Women's empowerment · Child Nutrition and Water Access · Demography · Global Maternal and Child Health · Medicine · Nursing · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Psychology
Effects of Engaging Fathers and Bundling Nutrition and Parenting Interventions on Child Nutrition Outcomes and Related Parent Behaviors in Rural Tanzania
Strategies for men’s engagement and its effectiveness in improving child health and immunization—a rapid review
Agency and Opportunity in Early Adolescence
Effects of engaging fathers and bundling parenting and nutrition interventions on early child development and maternal and paternal parenting in Mara, Tanzania
Father involvement is a protective factor for maternal mental health in Western Kenya
Fathers’ engagement in a parenting program primarily intended for female caregivers
“Good fathers”
Preliminary outcomes and experiences of fathers participating in a multicomponent parenting program for couples with young children
Strengthening Health Science Communication in Sub-Saharan Africa
Food purchase diversity is associated with market food diversity and diets of children and their mothers but not fathers in rural Tanzania
Intimate partner violence influences modern family planning use among married women in Tanzania
Engaging fathers(to-be)
Caregiving experiences and practices
Promoting responsive care and early learning practices in Northern Ghana
Whose Decision Is It Anyway? Men’s Perceptions of Women’s Decision-Making Autonomy in Maternal and Child Health in Western Kenya
Psychometric Characteristics of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support
Associations between women's autonomy and child nutritional status
Effects of a parenting intervention to address maternal psychological wellbeing and child development and growth in rural Uganda
Effects of integrated child development and nutrition interventions on child development and nutritional status
Gender-transformative Bandebereho couples’ intervention to promote male engagement in reproductive and maternal health and violence prevention in Rwanda
Involving men to improve maternal and newborn health
Early childhood development coming of age
Effect of a home-visiting parenting program to promote early childhood development and prevent violence
The impact of women’s empowerment on their children’s early development in 26 African countries
Women's empowerment and child nutrition
Questioning gender norms with men to improve health outcomes
Nutrition‐sensitive agriculture programme impacts on time use and associations with nutrition outcomes
Development of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-Weai)
The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index
Intrinsic and instrumental agency associated with nutritional status of East African women
Is women's empowerment a pathway to improving child nutrition outcomes in a nutrition-sensitive agriculture program
Resources, Agency, Achievements
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 7,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 15 |