Awareness of Appropriate Diet

Output

% of women of reproductive age aware of at least X out of X [specify numbers] promoted dietary practices

This composite indicator measures the proportion of women of reproductive age who are aware of a specified minimum number of dietary practices promoted by the intervention. It can be used to assess changes in nutrition-related knowledge but does not show whether respondents follow these practices or consume an adequate diet. Where other household or community members have an important influence on the relevant dietary practices, consider assessing their awareness separately.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define the dietary practices whose awareness you want to assess. Define the dietary practices whose awareness you want to assess. Focus only on appropriate dietary practices that the intervention will actively promote or has actively promoted. Do not include a broad range of dietary practices that the intervention has not meaningfully focused on, as this would make the indicator less useful for assessing the results of your intervention.

2) For each selected practice, formulate a simple question that assesses whether the woman is aware of the practice. Word the questions in a neutral, non-leading way so that they do not suggest the expected or “correct” answer. Define in advance which response(s) will be considered as demonstrating awareness of each practice. Examples of questions include:

• Do you think that women should or should not breastfeed when they are ill?

• During pregnancy, should women eat less, more or the same amount of food as before?

3) Set the minimum number of promoted practices a woman needs to be aware of to meet the indicator's threshold. For example, if six practices are assessed, you might define the threshold as awareness of at least four of the six practices. Set this threshold before analysing the collected data.

4) Conduct individual interviews with a representative sample of the targeted women of reproductive age, using the questions developed in step 2.

5) For each interviewed woman, determine how many of the assessed practices she is aware of. Then determine whether she meets the threshold defined in step 3. For example, if the threshold is awareness of at least four out of six practices, a woman who is aware of four, five or six practices meets the threshold.

6) To calculate the indicator's value, divide the number of interviewed women who meet the threshold by the total number of interviewed women. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

For example, if 75 out of 100 interviewed women are aware of at least four out of six promoted dietary practices, the indicator's value is 75%.

This data can be disaggregated by age group, intervention exposure, geographical area, and other characteristics relevant to the programme.

1) When comparing results over time, use the same practices, questions and threshold at each survey round.

2) While women take most care of young children (and their awareness is therefore essential), their actual practices may also be influenced by other family and community members, such as husbands, mothers-in-law, traditional healers or other influential people, depending on the context. Therefore, effective interventions have to influence and also measure their awareness. Therefore, it is highly recommended to also use some of the following modifications of this indicator:

   - % of husbands aware of at least X out of X dietary practices

   - % of mother-in-law aware of at least X out of X dietary practices

Also consider using the following indicators:

• Minimum Acceptable Diet (useful where the intervention promotes feeding practices for children aged 6–23 months)

• Exclusive Breastfeeding Under Six Months (useful where the intervention promotes breastfeeding practices)

• Women Dietary Diversity Score (useful where the intervention aims to improve women's dietary practices)