This thesis aimed to explore gaps in existing knowledge and identify new avenues to illuminate the connections between agriculture, nutrition and environmental health. Three separate, but complimentary, studies were designed to achieve this. The findings were then used to develop a model multisector intervention approach to improve food security, nutrition, the household environment and health outcomes in low and middle-income countries (LMIC), using Nepal as a case study. This research adopted a mixed-methods sequential explanatory approach. Initially, peer reviewed journal articles were reviewed to identify the type, extent and effectiveness of household interventions to improve food security, health and the household environment in LMIC. The barriers and facilitators to the development and delivery of multisector interventions in LMIC were assessed based on the qualitative synthesis of academic journal articles and existing grey literature. Additionally, a workshop-based qualitative case study was completed to understand Nepalese stakeholders' perceptions on development and implementation of a multisector intervention. It is clear that very little trans-disciplinary research has been done with the majority of studies still being discipline specific. It also appears that certain LMIC seem to focus on domain specific interventions. Those interventions that incorporated multiple domains such as; home gardening with nutrition education; nutrition intervention with water, sanitation and hygiene; appear to be more successful in terms of providing multiple benefits. Qualitative synthesis highlighted common barriers including co-ordination issues, access to the resources, inadequate technical capacity and limited shared understanding of multidisciplinary working among sectorial stakeholders. While facilitators included collaborative networking opportunities such as discipline discourse, webinars and funding to ensure sustainability of interventions. In addition, the Nepalese case study identified gaps in terms of knowledge generation and sharing between and within sectors. Finally, findings were synthesised to develop an evidence-based model approach multisector intervention to address multifaceted public health issues in LMIC.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:737939 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Gaihre, Santosh |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=235981 |
Page generated in 0.002 seconds