PREVALENCE OF STUNTING IN FOOD SECURE RUSITU VALLEY, CHIMANIMANI, ZIMBABWE: A SOCIAL ECOLOGICAL APPROACH.

The paper explores the conditions characterising stunting prevalence in food secure Rusitu Valley in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe. Despite various studies undertaken on stunting in food insecure regions of Africa and Asia, little has been theorised on its determinants in the food secure areas of Chimanimani in Zimbabwe. A mixed-methods approach was used in data collection. Descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis were used on quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Informed by the social ecological model, findings revealed that despite food security in the study area, nutrition insecurity existed. During 2014-2019, stunting among under five years was shown to be most prevalent in Ward 21b with a total of 272 patients and Ward 21a (208 patients), followed by Ward 22 (125), Ward 23 (113), Ward 16 (97), and the least in Ward 13 (62). In spite of their knowledge on stunting, 97% of the caregivers have not exclusively breastfed before complementary feeds, while only 3% purportedly practised it. Of the respondents, 40% revealed their children have once suffered from diarrhoea in the past 3 months, while 60% stated their children did not have diarrhoea in the last 3 months. While knowledge on infant and young child feeding are lacking at individual caregiver level andat interpersonal, community and organisational level, institutional constraints, disease prevalence, socio-economic barriers and maternal nutrition deficiency contribute to stunting prevalence. These exacerbate challenges in accessing various forms of capital assets. The study recommends strengthening collaborative health promotion activities, capacity building of organisations and community health structures on nutrition monitoring, and food security in households in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]