The Role of Community Development in Addressing Malnutrition in Africa

This literature review examines the multifaceted issue of malnutrition in Africa, focusing on the role of community development in addressing its underlying causes and potential solutions. The review explores various factors contributing to malnutrition, including poverty, lack of access to food, and unemployment, highlighting their interconnectedness and impact on public health. It analyzes the effectiveness of community engagement strategies, such as area-based, coalition-based, and person-based initiatives, in improving health outcomes and promoting well-being. The review synthesizes findings from multiple sources, emphasizing the importance of interventions that foster economic and social development, reduce health inequalities, and empower communities to take proactive measures against malnutrition. The study underscores the need for comprehensive approaches that integrate community participation, government initiatives, and agency collaborations to create sustainable solutions for a healthier Africa.

Literature Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
METHODOLOGY SEARCH STRATEGY....................................................................................1
PRISMA FLOW DIAGRAM .........................................................................................................2
CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF LITERATURE USING CASP CHECKLIST.................................2
REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE ...................................................................................3
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

PLEASE CHECK THE OLD WORK ( USE OF 12 ARTICLES)
INTRODUCTION
Community development is considered as a process which ensures the involvement of all
the community members in order to take effective actions for some basic issues. The well-being
of the community involves all the essential aspects such as social, economic, political,
environmental etc. Malnutrition is classified as one of the basic issues because of which the
economy of the world has to suffer severe cases of deaths, especially of children (Cobbinah,
Erdiaw-Kwasie and Amoateng, 2015). There may be various reasons which leads to the issues
like poverty, malnutrition etc. and these may involve poverty etc. So, the involvement of
community development can actually help in providing some sort of help to the people dealing
with the issues like malnutrition in Africa. Although there have been various initiatives
developed by the government of Africa, but it has been observed that the success rate is likely to
be low enough. So, various ways can be involved in order to reduce the rate of people suffering
from hunger and malnutrition. A very common example of this can be considered as the
involvement of community development. The report is about discussing the factors that led to a
higher rate of people suffering from malnutrition. Also, the role of community development in
providing proper help and support have also been included.
METHODOLOGY SEARCH STRATEGY
Literature articles were extracted from CINAHL database using the Mesh (Medical
subject headings) terms. Some keywords and terms as a part of the Mesh terms, that were used
for searching the articles were malnutrition, hunger, poverty, Africa etc. To ensure that each and
every article is presented and none of them has been missed, self-searches were conducted.
Database Number of articles on CINAHL
Total number of articles 2066
Identified and observed articles 83
Number of duplicates 1668
Screened records 64
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Excluded records 417
Eligible articles 16
Full text articles excluded 4
In qualitative synthesis 2
SEARCH TERMS , STRATEGIES AND LIMITATIONS
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH LIMITS
PRISMA FLOW DIAGRAM
In order to conduct this study many articles were selected by the author. All these articles
were from 2004 to 2018. Total 2066 articles were selected on the topic. But researcher has also
included 83 articles more. But after recording of articles it was found that there are 1668 are
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duplicate researches. Thus, these have been removed from the list. Excluded records were 417
and screened articles were 64. At the end researcher has included 2 qualitative studies in order to
carry out the investigation on community engagement to reduce Malnutrition in Africa.
CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF LITERATURE USING CASP CHECKLIST
USING THR CASP CHECKLIST TABLE
The two articles chosen represents the various factors by which community development
can help in reducing the overall rate of malnutrition in people in Africa. The article by Carina
tends to be more effective because it covers the majority of the factors involved in the CASP
checklist. This article is clearly focused on the influence of the community development in
providing interventions that can help the individual. The author of the article also has maintained
the quality that can help in providing an efficient set of understanding and analysis of the
research. The overall results of the article are also clear as it helps in attaining the fact that the
involvement of community development can actually help in reducing the rate of malnutrition in
Africa.
REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
According to Attree (2011), there are various factors, strategies and ways that are
involved by the community engagement and the focus of each one is the promotion of a healthy
and better well-being that can help in reducing the complexities of life. It means involvement of
various interventions by means of the community development which helps in making
improvements in different factors. Some well-known and common examples of this can be
considered as the self-confidence, self-esteem, etc. On the other side, Carina (2018), it has been
analysed that the community development keeps its focus on some specified factors that further
proves helpful enough in making improvisations such as reducing the overall rate of malnutrition
in Africa. The focus here is on targeting the economic and social disparities because of which the
issue of malnutrition is increasing day by day in Africa. There can be some economic reasons
because of which people in some areas of Africa do not afford food, thus they have to become
victims of hunger and malnutrition. Either these people or their children stay hungry or they eat
from some minor means such as from dustbins etc.
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The food people throw in the dustbins is completely not healthy and lacks in nutrition as
well. Therefore, when the same food is being composed by the people or children of these areas,
it is obvious that it will affect their physical health badly. Poverty can also be considered as
another reason that may lead to the malnutrition of the people. The people in some areas of
Africa do not afford to eat food because they are not employed. Unemployment has also helped
in increasing the rate of people dealing with poverty issues. As per Attree (2011), lack of
availability of food and employment further leads to complications such as stress, depression etc.
It happens because of lack of opportunities to the people living in these areas of Africa because if
they would be having an efficient rate of opportunities, they will be employed, which in turn
have decreased the rate of them being hungry etc. So, it can be analysed that because of the
factors such as financial issues, unemployment etc., the rate of malnutrition is increasing in
Africa, so proper measures can be taken in order to control it.
As per Attree (2011), it has covered some major points in the research and it focuses on
the promotion of various health strategies so that more and more people in Africa can become
able to have an efficient amount of food, so that they can stay even healthy and fit enough. It
includes that community development makes involvement of enormous number of approaches
such as collecting sources that can help in providing these people some sort of employment. It is
because the actual reason behind the malnutrition of these people is the lack of financial stability.
When this issue will be resolved, then the problem of hunger and malnutrition will also decrease.
So, it can be analysed that community development and its factors can actually prove helpful
enough in minimizing the overall rate of the people suffering from malnutrition in Africa.
Community development has also included various ways that can be involved in order to relieve
the stress rate of the people because due to the continuous hunger and malnutrition, people have
been stressed about themselves, their kids etc. so, by involving all these factors, it promotes
positivity and happiness to an extent that the people can thus be able to take proper care of
themselves by these means implemented by the community development, thus focusing on a
healthier and a happier life.
On the other side, according to Carina (2018), three types of initiatives have been
included and these are area based, coalition based and person based ones. In case of the area
based initiatives, the social and economic disparities have been target so that the economic
condition of these people can get better so that they can have a proper diet and food. In case of
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the person based initiatives, it has focused on engaging a higher amount of population which
means involving a great amount of population because the actual aim is to eradicate the whole
issue of malnutrition in people (Annan, 2018). It is not about a few people, it is about eradicating
the issue completely. In case of the coalition based initiatives, it is about involving the power
from the people or groups that are interested enough in providing some help. A well-known
example of this is the community groups in the process of community development because their
only focus is to remove the issue of malnutrition in people in Africa. It is important as well
because this has become one of the largest reasons that are responsible for causing deaths in
Africa. So, because of some issues like poverty, lack of understanding, unemployment etc. the
people are suffering from malnutrition. They are used to taking food from means of roads, the
one that is being thrown away by people in dustbins etc. Although it fills their stomach but the
food they eat lacks in nutrition and is unhealthy that it can actually impact very negative on their
health. Thus, it is very important to follow all these objectives so that more people in Africa can
get sort of help and can stay protected from any sort of complication because of it. The
communities of the community development can also combine their operations with some
agencies so that they can also get some sort of support in various different activities that can
prove helpful in providing support to the people suffering from malnutrition in Africa. Also,
there have been various initiatives developed by the government of Africa in order to provide
employment and other helping factors to these people in order to reduce the issue of malnutrition
in Africa.
DISCUSSION
The study has investigated about the community engagement for improving health
condition of the people. It is considered as effective strategies that can supports in promoting the
well-being and minimizing health inequalities in the society (Attree and et.al., 2011). There are
many people those who are suffering of many health issues which create difficulty for them to
live a healthy life. The study has examined the various methods through which community
engagement can be increased. These are such as rapid appraisal, neighbourhood, community
champions etc. This is considered as decision making tool that aids in empowering users and
engaging people so that common health issues in the society can be identifies and effective
policies can be made by government in order to provide quality care services to the patients. This
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research explains that physical and psychological demands of engagement is onerous for the
people those who are suffering from particular disease (Attree and et.al., 2011). People those
who are not able to express their feelings than anyone in the group then these persons are being
discriminated by others and they make laugh on them. In such condition, morale of these patients
gets reduced. Overall finding of the study has shown that people those who are actively involved
in the community engagement approach they are getting positive results. This has supported in
building their confidence and it has also developed their relationship with other community
members.
From the study it is identified that active engagement of the community members gives
psychosocial benefits and raise their confidence as well. Study has involved many participants
from which it is found that maximum people have view that their self-confidence has been
developed with the help of community engagement. Study discussed that this is the great tool by
this way individual can express their feeling and can show their love to others (Attree and et.al.,
2011). Also, it reduces the gaps between individual and aids in strengthen the personal relations.
One of the main social effects of this engagement is that it helps in developing healthy
relationship between two people. When both these people share their feeling then they get more
aware about the causes of illness. Thus, they take care of their eating so that their health can be
improved soon. This rapid review of the evidence suggest that community engagement is
beneficial in order to improve physical, psychological well-being of the persons. But it is also
explained that sometimes, this engagement creates negative consequences but many people
negotiate about gains and losses which is the potential risk to the well-being. But it was
identified that this study has certain limitation. One of the main limitation of this study is
limiting engagement to consultation exercise. This article failed to match up with rhetoric of
community engagement.
From the evidence of second article it is analysed that community engagement is very
effective in order to change health behaviour of the patients. This article has taken support of
peer educator, social health promotional techniques (Zhu, 2011). These approaches are helpful in
addressing health domains in individual. But overall success of this engagement is highly
depended upon the interest and health behaviour of target audience. There are various barriers to
this engagement such as centralized power of statutory sector, poor infrastructure facilities, short
term funding etc. These are the major issues due to which health professional fail to meet with
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their target and fail to enhance this engagement. From the evidence it is identified that this article
has paid more attention on the social determinants of the health. But there are some limitation in
this article (Zhu, 2011). Researcher has applied variety of method such as focus group,
community workshop etc. but effectiveness of these methods have not been described clearly.
Due to this, variation in final outcome may witness and can hamper future research.
SUMMARY OF LITERATURES INCLUDED IN THIS REVIEW ( TABLE FORM)
Literature Aim Data and
design
methods,
Source
location and
participant
Interventions Result and
limitations
Reducing
Child
Malnutrition
through
Community
Intervention
Programs:
Evidence from
a Large Scale
Randomized
Trial in Rural
Senegal
to improve
child nutrition
in Senegal
based on
randomized
community
intervention
Z- score
strategy
Data from
2004 to 2006
have been
taken into
consideration.
Community
development
Attree, P. and
et.al.
2011.
To improve
health by
using
community
engagement
approaches
Medline Support
workers from
local families
Sure start Community
engagement
helps in
improving
physical,
psychological
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condition, self
confidence of
the people
those who are
suffering from
ill health.
Bickerstaff &
Walker
Interest group
representatives
Transport
planning
Bolam et al.
(2006)
People those
who belong
from
disadvantage
group such as
employed
people, disable
people
City Net-an
information
communicatio
n technology
project
Callard &
Friedli (2005)
Residents
drawn from
estate
Community
arts
Chau, 2007 Chinese older
people
Service
planning
Church and
Elster 2002
Volunteers
from socially
or
economically
deprived areas
Sustainable
development
Zhu, C., 2011
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CONCLUSION
From the above study, it can be concluded that community engagement is the essential
initiative that can support in improving health condition of the population. This is the way
through which issues of health can be addressed easily. This is the way that assist in improving
physical, psychological health condition of individual in the society. But sometimes, people
those who are suffering from Malnutrition have to face negative consequences due to their
illness. Many people do not accept these persons in the society thus, they do not communicate
well with them. From the above report it can be articulated that NICE method is the cochrane
style of conducting systematic review. By including relevant studies in the review researcher can
find out the accurate results.
RECOMMENDATIONS
There are various ways of reducing Malnutrition in Africa. These are described as below:
 Implementation of effective policies is considered as effective way. By this way people
will not be able to discriminate the person those who are suffering from Malnutrition.
This can abolish inequalities from the society and will encourage engagement in the
community.
 Government should take initiatives in order to provide training to the people those who
are working as social workers in the community. If these people get adequate training
then it would be easy for them to make others understand within the importance of
community engagement. This will develop healthy envelopment and all people will take
care of their health. This can develop confidence of these people and they will put their
hard efforts in order to achieve goal of reducing Malnutrition from Africa.
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 It is essential to encourage engagement that to consider interest of population and target
health behaviour. This will help in gaining more optimistic results in order to improve
well-being of Malnutrition people.
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