ArticlePublic health nutrition2021
Food security mediates the decrease in women's depressive symptoms in a participatory nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention in rural Tanzania.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of 633,317 individuals shows associations between healthy diets and depression, anxiety and stress in 23 low- and middle-income countries.BMC global and public health · 2026Pooled it
- Farmer Mental Health Interventions: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Impact pathways of a homestead food production programme on women's dietary diversity in Bangladesh.Nature food · 2026Trial
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate if food security mediated the impact of a nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention on women's depressive symptoms.
designWe used annual longitudinal data (four time points) from a cluster-randomised effectiveness trial of a participatory nutrition-sensitive agroecology intervention, the Singida Nutrition and Agroecology Project. Structural equation modelling estimation of total, natural direct and natural indirect effects was used to investigate food security's role in the intervention's impact on women's risk of probable depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale > 17) across 3 years.
settingRural Singida, Tanzania.
participants548 food insecure, married, smallholder women farmers with children < 1 year old at baseline.
resultsAt baseline, one-third of the women in each group had probable depression (Control: 32·0 %, Intervention: 31·9 %, P difference = 0·97). The intervention lowered the odds of probable depression by 43 % (OR = 0·57, 95 % CI: 0·43, 0·70). Differences in food insecurity explained approximately 10 percentage points of the effects of the intervention on odds of probable depression (OR = 0·90, 95 % CI: 0·83, 0·95).
conclusionsThis is the first evidence of the strong, positive effect that lowering food insecurity has on reducing women's depressive symptoms. Nutrition-sensitive agricultural interventions can have broader impacts than previously demonstrated, i.e. improvements in mental health; changes in food security play an important causal role in this pathway. As such, these data suggest participatory nutrition-sensitive agroecology interventions have the potential to be an accessible method of improving women's well-being in farming communities.
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Registered trials
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