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Every child has the right to proper nutrition. As such, child nutrition counselling is recommended to improve child dietary diversity and reduce malnutrition. However, there is limited empirical evidence on how child nutrition counselling, gender dynamics, and intra-household feeding decisions play a role and translate to child dietary diversity in rural contexts. Informed by theoretical conceptions from Health Belief Model (HBM) and Gender and Development (GAD) framework, we analyzed cross-sectional data from 517 smallholder households in Ghana's semi-arid Upper West Region to investigate the relationship between child nutrition counselling, gender dynamics, intra-household feeding decision-making, and their impact on child dietary diversity. Results from ordered logistic regression show that households that received child nutrition counselling reported higher child dietary diversity. Joint intra-household feeding decisions were associated with higher child dietary diversity. Households with good self-rated childcare, engaged in home gardening, and higher wealth, as well as those in the Waala ethnic group, were more likely to have high child dietary diversity. A decrease in household head age was linked to increased high child dietary diversity. On the other hand, female-headed households, Brifo ethnic groups, and those in the Wa East and Wa West districts were less likely to experience high child dietary diversity. Implementing interventions and policies prioritizing nutrition education in the Upper West Region and similar sub-Saharan African contexts is recommended. Strategies like scaling up child nutrition counselling, food demonstrations, mother-to-mother support nutrition outreach, and mobile nutrition clinics can empower women and improve children's well-being., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Dietary diversity is crucial in ensuring food and nutrition security. In low-middle-income countries, people frequently prioritize the quantity of food they consume over its quality due to a lack of availability and financial limitations. As a result, achieving dietary diversity is often overlooked in favor of ensuring adequate caloric intake. Through a social cognitive theory perspective, our study examines the relationship between food demonstrations and household dietary diversity in Ghana's Upper West Region utilizing cross-sectional survey data from 517 smallholder farmer households. The results from ordered logistic regression presented in odds ratio (OR) show that participating in food demonstrations (OR: 2.585, p<0.01), engaging in home gardening (OR: 1.932, p<0.001), having access to credit (OR: 1.609, p<0.01), self-rated good nutritional status (OR: 1.747, p<0.01), and Waala ethnicity (OR: 3.686, p<0.001) were all positively associated with high household dietary diversity. Conversely, living in the Wa West district was associated with lower dietary diversity (OR: 0.326, p<0.001). Our research findings suggest that policymakers may want to consider implementing community-based educational programs, such as home and school visits for food demonstrations and sensitizations, promoting mother-to-mother support groups for dietary diversity education, nutrition counseling services, and using role-play and local media. In addition, strengthening local agricultural policies through food banks, indigenous seed development, and mobile food markets and enhancing public-private partnerships like the Ghana Schools Feeding Programme and National Food Buffer Stock company could improve the supply chain and distribution networks for diverse food items. Implementing these interventions in the Upper West Region of Ghana could improve health, well-being, food security, and nutritional outcomes., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Pienaah et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Women are biologically more susceptible to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted Infections (STIs) because receptive sex is riskier than insertive. Despite condom use being the staple preventive method for HIV infection (over 80% efficacy), in Sub-Saharan African countries like Burkina Faso, a high burden of HIV and the unmet need for condom use coexist. Moreover, even though women in SSA are disproportionately HIV positive, they are reportedly less capable of negotiating condom use for HIV risk reduction. Thus, using the Health Believe Model (HBM), this study explored the factors that influence condom use among women within the context of HIV prevention, with a key interest in condom use negotiation. Using the women's dataset of the 2021 Burkina Faso Demographic and Health Survey and applying logistic regression models, this study examined the factors associated with condom use for HIV risk reduction. Women who had confidence to negotiate condom use with their partners (OR = 1.57, P<0.001, 95%CI: 1.29, 1.91), those with secondary education (OR = 1.38, P<0.05, 95%CI: 1.07 1.77), from richest households (OR = 1.64, P<0.05, 95%CI: 1.08, 2.47), the employed (OR = 1.23, P<0.05, 95%CI: 1.02, 1.49), women with knowledge of sexually transmitted infections (OR = 1.58, P<0.001, 95%CI: 1.26, 1.97), those who have ever been tested for HIV (OR = 1.85, P<0.001, 95%CI: 1.52 2.24), as well as those who knew that a healthy-looking person can have HIV (OR = 2.64, P<0.001, 95%CI: 2.15, 3.24) were all significantly more likely to practice condom use for HIV risk reduction. Also, religion and geographical location of participants significantly predicted condom use for HIV risk reduction in the study context. The ability to negotiate condom use, knowledge of HIV and STIs, the socioeconomic status of women, as well as their geographical location, influence their practice of safer sex for HIV risk reduction in Burkina Faso., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Saaka et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)