ABSTRACT
Communities' knowledge and management strategies are crucial for mitigating and controlling the threat of existing and emerging diseases. In this study, we conducted randomised control trials (RCT) to examine the impact of health education on households' knowledge and management of three Arboviral Diseases (ADs); Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya fever, and Dengue fever in Kenya. The study was based on a sample of 629 households drawn from the three of Kenya's AD hotspot counties; Baringo, Kwale, and Kilifi. Employing a difference-in-difference method, our findings indicate that health education intervention significantly improved households' understanding of ADs transmission modes, causes, and prevention strategies. However, this intervention did not sufficiently influence households' disease management behaviour. We recommend the implementation of community engagement and outreach initiatives which have the potential to drive behavioural changes at the household level, thus enhancing the management and control of ADs in Kenya.
Subject(s)
Arbovirus Infections , Chikungunya Fever , Animals , Humans , Kenya , Health EducationABSTRACT
Empowerment in agriculture plays an important role in improving food and nutrition security. Understanding the determinants of farmer empowerment in agriculture is vital in improving the targeting of key indicators that matter for policy and practice. Most of the existing studies focus on female empowerment, leaving out the equally important aspect of male empowerment. We compute empowerment in agriculture index for male and female farmers and assess its determinants by applying the Tobit and Logit models on cross-sectional data of 835 farmers in Kenya. We find that only 11% of the farmers were empowered, 5% of whom were female. Econometric results show that gender had a positive and significant association with empowerment in agriculture and male and female farmers benefited to varying extents even from the same determinants. Thus, empowerment initiatives should compensate for such differences by targeting male and female farmers. Moreover, commercialization, access to government extension services and value of assets were positively and significantly associated with empowerment in agriculture indicating extra pathways through which empowerment in agriculture could be enhanced.
ABSTRACT
The push-pull technology (PPT) is considered as an alternative integrated pest management strategy for the control of fall armyworm and stemborer, among smallholder maize farmers in sub-Sahara African to conventional pesticides. However, the extent of PPT use in Rwanda where the technology was introduced in 2017 remains largely unexplored. This paper employed a fractional logit model to assess the factors influencing the intensity of adoption of PPT among smallholder maize farmers in Gatsibo and Nyagatare districts of Rwanda using survey data obtained from 194 PPT adopter households selected using a cluster sampling technique. While only 5 percent of smallholder farmers in Rwanda have adopted PPT as an integrated pest management strategy, on the average, these farmers cultivated 26 percent of their maize plots to the technology. Our results show that the perceived benefits of PPT, its perceived effectiveness in pest control, group membership, livestock ownership, and gender of the farmer had significant effects on the intensity of adoption of the PPT in Rwanda. These findings give compelling evidence to recommend that development initiatives should give emphasis on creating awareness on the perceived benefits of PPT adoption using group approaches that are gender disaggregated.
ABSTRACT
Globally, arthropod-borne virus (arbovirus) infections continue to pose substantial threats to public health and economic development, especially in developing countries. In Kenya, although arboviral diseases (ADs) are largely endemic, little is known about the factors influencing livestock farmers' knowledge, beliefs, and management (KBM) of the three major ADs: Rift Valley fever (RVF), dengue fever and chikungunya fever. This study evaluates the drivers of livestock farmers' KBM of ADs from a sample of 629 respondents selected using a three-stage sampling procedure in Kenya's three hotspot counties of Baringo, Kwale, and Kilifi. A multivariate fractional probit model was used to assess the factors influencing the intensity of KBM. Only a quarter of the farmers had any knowledge of ADs while over four-fifths of them could not manage any of the three diseases. Access to information (experience and awareness), income, education, religion, and distance to a health facility considerably influenced the intensity of farmers' KBM of ADs in Kenya. Thus, initiatives geared towards improving access to information through massive awareness campaigns are necessary to mitigate behavioral barriers in ADs management among rural communities in Kenya.
