Engaging Fathers for Effective Child Nutrition and Development in Tanzania

Engaging Fathers for Effective Child Nutrition and Development in Tanzania (EFFECTS): A Community-Based Bundled Nutrition and Parenting Intervention

This study aims to evaluate the independent and combined effectiveness of engaging both mothers and fathers in bundled parenting and nutrition behavior change packages on early child nutrition and development.

The overall aim of EFFECTS is to develop, implement, and evaluate nutrition and parenting interventions that will be delivered by community health workers in the Mara region of Tanzania. We will use a 2x2 factorial cluster randomized controlled study design, plus a local standard of care control group, to evaluate the effectiveness of EFFECTS on the primary outcomes of early child nutrition and development. In total, there will be five study arms: nutrition intervention with mothers, nutrition intervention with mothers and fathers, bundled nutrition and parenting intervention with mothers, bundled nutrition and parenting intervention with mothers and fathers, and a local standard of care control. We hypothesize that an intervention approach that engages fathers will benefit the primary outcomes; a bundled nutrition and parenting package will benefit the same primary outcomes; and that the combined intervention approach - that both engages fathers and bundles nutrition and parenting messages - will have additive benefits on the primary outcomes.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Household has a child aged 0-18 months at study enrollment
• Child has a mother/female caregiver with a male partner
• Mother, father, and child anticipate remaining in the study area for the duration of the study
• The mother, and father where appropriate, is willing to participate in a peer group for the duration of the intervention, receiving full knowledge of the amount of time they are expected to contribute to this study.
• Both mother and father provide informed consent.
• Fathers have to be present in household with mother/child 10 months out of the year

Exclusion Criteria:

• None (only those households not meeting all the above criteria will be excluded from the study)