Examining intentions to take iron supplements to inform a behavioral intervention: The Reduction in Anemia through Normative Innovations (RANI) project

Erica Sedlander, Michael W Long, Jeffrey B Bingenheimer and Rajiv N Rimal

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-16

Abstract: Background: More than half of women of reproductive age in India have anemia. Over the last decade, India has made some progress towards reducing anemia in pregnant women, but non-pregnant women, who make up the largest sub group of people with anemia, are largely disregarded. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to examine intentions to take iron supplements and factors associated with intentions to inform a social norms-based behavioral intervention to increase uptake of iron supplements and reduce anemia in Odisha, India. Methods: We collected data from 3,914 randomly sampled non-pregnant women of reproductive age in 81 villages. We conducted a survey and took hemocue (anemia level) readings from each participant. We analyzed data using linear regression models beginning with demographics and social norms and adding other factors such as self-efficacy to take iron supplements, anemia risk perception, and knowledge about anemia in a subsequent model. Results: 63% of women in our sample were anemic but less than 5% knew they were anemic. Despite national guidelines that all women of reproductive age should take weekly iron supplements to prevent anemia, less than 3% of women in our sample were currently taking them. While actual use was low, intentions were rather high. On a five point Likert scale where higher numbers meant more intentions to take supplements, average intentions were above the midpoint (M = 3.48, SD = 1.27) and intentions and iron supplement use were significantly correlated (r = .10, p

Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249646 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 49646&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0249646

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249646

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().