Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract ELIC202577 (Poster 151) | Published: 12 Aug 2025
Semira Manaseki-Holland1,&, Buba Manjang1,2, Karla Hemming1, Christopher Bradley3, Louise Jackson1, Om Prasad Gautam4, Francesca Crowe1, Sandy Cairncross5, Bakary Sanneh6, James Martin1, Makie Taal7, Jeroen Ensink5, Tim Stokes8
1Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, United Kingdom, 2Directorate of Public Health and Social Welfare, Ministry of Health of the Government of Gambia, Quadrangle, Banjul, The Gambia, 3School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, United Kingdom, 4WaterAid, London, United Kingdom, 5London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom, 6National Public Health Laboratory Services, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Kotu, The Gambia, 7American International University West Africa, Banjul, The Gambia,8Department of General Practice and Rural Health, Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
&Corresponding author: Semira Manaseki-Holland, Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, United Kingdom, Email: s.manasekiholland@bham.ac.uk
Received: 24 Mar 2025, Accepted: 09 Jul 2025, Published: 12 Aug 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: cluster randomised controlled trial, diarrhoea, pneumonia, behaviour change, weaning-food, hygiene, community intervention, dramatic arts, motivational drives
©Semira Manaseki-Holland et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Semira Manaseki-Holland et al. A hygiene intervention to improve mothers’ weaning food handling practices in rural Gambia. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(Conf Proc 5):00295. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO5-00295
The intervention included a community-wide campaign on days 1, 2, 17, and 25, a reminder visits at 5 months, plus informal community-volunteer home visits. It promoted 5 key complementary-food and 1 key drinking-water safety and hygiene behaviours through performing arts, public meetings, and certifications delivered by a team from localhealth and village structures to all villagers who attended the activities, to which mothers of 6- to 24-month-old children were specifically invited. Control villages received a 1-day campaign on domestic-garden water use. Outcomes were measured at 6 and 32months in a random sample of 21–26 mothers per cluster. The primary outcome was a composite outcome of the number of times key complementary-food behaviours were observed as a proportion of the number of opportunities to perform the behaviours during the observation period at 6 months. (Registration: PACTR201410000859336).
The composite behaviour score on the primary outcome was 65% versus 15% for intervention against control(p<0.001). At 6 months the adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] = 4.44, 95% CI 3.62–5.44, p <0.001), and at 32 months the aIRR was 1.17 (95% CI 1.07–1.29, p=0.001). Secondary health outcomes also improved with the intervention: mother-reported diarrhoea hospitalization at 6 months, with aRR = 0.35 (95% CI 0.19–0.66, p = 0.001), and at 32 months, with aRR =0.38 (95%CI0.18–0.80, p=0.011).
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