Anaemia in Ivory Coast: the advantage of a social approach

Francis Akindès (1, 2) , Gisèle Sedia (2) , Gisèle Kouakou (2) , Nicolas Bricas (3, 4)

1 Université Alassane Ouattara
2 CUB - Chaire Unesco de Bioéthique
3 UMR MOISA - Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs
4 Cirad-ES - Département Environnements et Sociétés

T he nutritional situation in Ivory Coast is worrying. In this country in Subsaharan Africa, feeding of children has been at the centre of national preoccupations for several years. The combat against malnutrition is integrated into national programs intended to promote and support correct feeding of infants and young children, the protection of mothers' breastfeeding and the combat against deficiencies. However, the situation is deteriorating and the report of Landscape Analysis (2010) underlines that the causes of this deterioration are not yet well understood. In 1997, there were 35% iron deficiencies among children of preschool age, 29% of school age 45% of pregnant women. Ten years later, in 2007, there were at 50% among children of preschool age (+15 percentile points), 59% of school age (+30 points) and 58% for pregnant women (+13 points). However, early childhood is a critical period which is decisive for the continued development of the child. The PNN (National Nutrition Programme) and the WHO (World Health Organization) explain the malnutrition and deficiencies by "bad feeding practices" and by a lack of knowledge of nutritional recommendations. Matorel (in Dewey, 2003) adds that a high rate of infectious diseases is another direct cause of malnutrition. Apart from these factors, the deterioration of the situation is not well documented: what has concretely changed in practices? What are the recommended norms, and what are the practices which have become social norms declared by the mothers, compared with those of a generation earlier? Do these practices have a real impact on malnutrition? Instead of pointing a finger on the lack of knowledge of mothers, or on their nonobservance of the (official or elders') recommandations in terms of child's feeding, we propose to mobilize social sciences to better understand the mothers. Our results reveal that the symptoms of anaemia are well known and identified by mothers, but that a number of their believes make them ignore the causes of the disease and adopt curative treatments which are unsuitable to cure the illness. This in-depth understanding of the mothers' practices and representations can provide levers to better adapt the communication to them, and the interventions designed to fight against anaemia or malnutrition on a wider scale.

Domaines: Sociologie; Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Francis Akindès, Gisèle Sedia, Gisèle Kouakou, Nicolas Bricas. Anaemia in Ivory Coast: the advantage of a social approach. So What ?, 2016, 1, 4 p. ⟨hal-01995591⟩