The Impact of Nutrition Social Marketing on Awareness, Behaviour Change, and Food Expenditures: A Cluster Matched Study from Coastal Kenya

Malnutrition continues to be a persistent global challenge, frequently affecting small-scale producers. Nutrition-focused social marketing has been shown to increase nutrition awareness and improve diets and nutrition outcomes, but less is known about the pathways to these positive outcomes as well as impacts on other nutrition-related behaviors like household food expenditure. We present findings from Samaki Salama, a community-based nutrition and fisheries sustainability trial conducted in coastal Kenya. Samaki Salama delivered an integrated nutrition social marketing campaign and modified fishing traps to matched communities in three study arms: (1) control (n = 200); (2) social marketing (n = 100); and (3) social marketing plus modified fishing traps and training (n = 100). Messaging platforms included personalized caregiver home visits, cooking demonstrations, fisher/father workshops, and the distribution of diverse branded materials. The main findings showed the intervention significantly improved diets and child growth. Here, we show Samaki Salama increased participants’ nutrition awareness, observations of encouraged behaviors, and household food expenditures. However, the expenditure increase was small, suggesting that improved child growth resulted from fishers bringing catch home for household consumption. Social marketing approaches with small-scale producers should encourage retention of household harvest/catch together with purchasing quality foods.