Formative evaluation of a participatory women's group intervention to improve reproductive and women's health outcomes in rural Bangladesh: a controlled before and after study.

BACKGROUND: Women's groups using participatory methods reduced newborn mortality in rural areas of low income countries. Our study assessed a participatory women's group intervention that focused on women's health, nutrition and family planning. METHODS: The study was conducted in three districts in Bangladesh between October 2011 and March 2013, covering a population of around 230 000. On the basis of allocation for the preceding cluster randomised trials, three unions per district were randomly allocated to receive a women's group intervention and three per district were control clusters. Outcomes included unmet need for family planning, morbidity, dietary diversity, night blindness, healthcare decision-making and knowledge of sexual and reproductive health, nutrition and anaemia. A difference-in-difference analysis was used to adjust for secular trends and baseline differences between women taking part in the intervention and a random sample from control clusters. RESULTS: We interviewed 5355 (91% response rate) women before the intervention and 5128 after (96% response rate). There were significant improvements in women's dietary diversity score (increase of 0.2 (95% CI 0.1 to 0.3)) and participation in healthcare decision-making (proportion increase (95% CI) 14.0% (10.6% to 17.4%)). There were also increases in knowledge about: contraception (4.2% (2.0% to 6.3%)), ways to treat (55.4% (52.2% to 58.5%)) and prevent (71.0% (68.0% to 74.1%)) sexually transmitted infections, nutrition (46.6% (43.6% to 49.6%)) and anaemia prevention (62.8% (60.9% to 64.6%)). There were no significant differences in unmet need for family planning, morbidity or night blindness. CONCLUSIONS: Participatory women's groups have considerable potential to improve women's health knowledge, but evidence of impact on certain outcomes is lacking. Further formative work and intervention development is needed to optimise the impact of this approach for women's health.

Socio-economic determinants of household food security and women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: There has been limited decline in undernutrition rates in South Asia compared with the rest of Asia and one reason for this may be low levels of household food security. However, the evidence base on the determinants of household food security is limited. To develop policies intended to improve household food security, improved knowledge of the determinants of household food security is required. METHODS: Household data were collected in 2011 from a randomly selected sample of 2,809 women of reproductive age. The sample was drawn from nine unions in three districts of rural Bangladesh. Multinomial logistic regression was conducted to measure the relationship between selected determinants of household food security and months of adequate household food provisioning, and a linear regression to measure the association between the same determinants and women's dietary diversity score. RESULTS: The analyses found that land ownership, adjusted relative risk ratio (RRR) 0.28 (CI 0.18, 0.42); relative wealth (middle tertile 0.49 (0.29, 0.84) and top tertile 0.18 (0.10, 0.33)); women's literacy 0.64 (0.46, 0.90); access to media 0.49 (0.33, 0.72); and women's freedom to access the market 0.56 (0.36, 0.85) all significantly reduced the risk of food insecurity. Larger households increased the risk of food insecurity, adjusted RRR 1.46 (CI 1.02, 2.09). Households with vegetable gardens 0.20 (0.11, 0.31), rich households 0.46 (0.24, 0.68) and literate women 0.37 (0.20, 0.54) were significantly more likely to have better dietary diversity scores. CONCLUSION: Household food insecurity remains a key public health problem in Bangladesh, with households suffering food shortages for an average of one quarter of the year. Simple survey and analytical methods are able to identify numerous interlinked factors associated with household food security, but wealth and literacy were the only two determinants associated with both improved food security and dietary diversity. We cannot conclude whether improvements in all determinants are necessarily needed to improve household food security, but new and existing policies that relate to these determinants should be designed and monitored with the knowledge that they could substantially influence the food security and nutritional status of the population.

The effect of participatory women's groups on infant feeding and child health knowledge, behaviour and outcomes in rural Bangladesh: a controlled before-and-after study.

BACKGROUND: Despite efforts to reduce under-5 mortality rates worldwide, an estimated 6.6 million under-5 children die every year. Community mobilisation through participatory women's groups has been shown to improve maternal and newborn health in rural settings, but little is known about the potential of this approach to improve care and health in children after the newborn period. METHODS: Following on from a cluster-randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of participatory women's groups on maternal and neonatal health outcomes in rural Bangladesh, 162 women's groups continued to meet between April 2010 and December 2011 to identify, prioritise and address issues that affect the health of children under 5 years. A controlled before-and-after study design and difference-in-difference analysis was used to assess morbidity outcomes and changes in knowledge and practices related to child feeding, hygiene and care-seeking behaviour. FINDINGS: Significant improvements were measured in mothers' knowledge of disease prevention and management, danger signs and hand washing at critical times. Significant increases were seen in exclusive breast feeding for at least 6 months (15.3% (4.2% to 26.5%)), and mean duration of breast feeding (37.9 days (17.4 to 58.3)). Maternal reports of under-5 morbidities fell in intervention compared with control areas, including reports of fever (-10.5% (-15.1% to -6.0%)) and acute respiratory infections (-12.2% (-15.6% to -8.8%)). No differences were observed in dietary diversity scores or immunisation uptake. CONCLUSIONS: Community mobilisation through participatory women's groups can be successfully adapted to address health knowledge and practice in relation to child's health, leading to improvements in a number of child health indicators and behaviours.