Publication: Mind Over Matter in the Philippines: A Study of Key Stakeholders' Perceptions of Childhood Stunting
Date
2020-06
ISSN
Published
2020-06
Author(s)
Abstract
Declines in rates of child stunting in
the Philippines have decelerated, making it hard for the
country to achieve its targets on nutritional outcomes. The
knowledge base, beliefs, and practices of caregivers have
been extensively researched, but little is known about how
health workers and policy makers fare in comparison. The
authors conduct qualitative interviews, striving to preclude
bias as we capture these stakeholders’ views on factors that
affect stunting, and go on to compare and contrast these
perceptions. The authors subsequently investigate the
importance of the different factors in detail through a
large-scale quantitative survey with frontline health and
nutrition workers. The findings suggest that while most
workers’ knowledge and beliefs are consistent with accepted
practices, important deviations from consensus views exist,
and these are correlated with worse self-reported service
delivery outcomes at local health centers. The findings
suggest that in the Philippines any endeavor to further
improve service delivery must take into consideration the
beliefs of frontline workers.
Citation
“Sen, Iman; Mbuya, Nkosinathi; Demombynes, Gabriel; Gauri, Varun. 2020. Mind Over Matter in the Philippines; Mind Over Matter in the Philippines : A Study of Key Stakeholders' Perceptions of Childhood Stunting. Health, Nutrition and Population Discussion Paper;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34377 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”