Essays on food, nutrition, health and development in northern Ghana

This research analyzes pertinent issues on food, health and nutrition in Northern Ghana in three different essays. In the first essay, data from the Feed the Future baseline survey was used to analyze the factors affecting stunting and wasting in children 0-59 month’s old in Northern Ghana. The study determined that the age category of child, region, age of the head of household and household access to safe drinking water were significantly associated with both stunting and wasting. Furthermore, the gender of child, and household location in an urban area, were also found to be significantly associated with only stunting. In essay two, the relationship between production diversity and dietary diversity of household were analyzed using data collected from 504 households in the Northern region of Ghana. The results showed that a 10% increase in household production diversity and household income increases HDDS by 2.5% and 0.01% respectively. Also, a 10 % increase in distance to the nearest market, household size, proportion of produce sold, and prize of maize decrease HDDS by 0.07 %, 0.48 %, 1.73 %, and 0.21 % respectively. Furthermore, household food group diversity was subject to seasonal variation. The last essay evaluated the impact of access to nutrition information on household knowledge, attitudes and practices on nutrition and health outcomes in Northern region of Ghana as well as analyzing the effects of access to nutrition extension information on total household production diversity using data from 504 households in Northern region of Ghana. The results obtained showed that 53.6% of women had a KAP score above mean score on knowledge on nutrition related issues. However, the association between knowledge and access to nutrition information was not significant. Also, 75.8% of women had good attitude regarding nutrition related issues whilst 96.8% had good practices towards nutrition issues. Women’s knowledge on the first food to give to a baby, length of exclusive breastfeeding, causes of undernutrition and prevention of undernutrition were also significantly and positively associated with access to nutrition information. Furthermore, results on attitude showed that women had a good attitude towards hand washing, the use of safe water for household purposes, and the effects of weight loss and undernutrition in children. Lastly, our results indicated that women had good practices towards using water from protected sources.