Determinants of Household Dietary Diversity in Rural Ethiopia: A Household Panel Study

Abstract Background Diet diversification ensures nutritional security and hence helps to realize human nutrient requirements. Despite its importance, diet diversification remains a challenge especially for rural communities of the developing countries. This study was aimed to identify the determinants of diet diversity in Oromia, and in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples regions of Ethiopia. Methods The agriculture-nutrition household panel data, called Ag-Nutrition, is used in this paper. The study collected data in 1200 households twice a year for two years in two kebeles in each of ten woredas (districts). We used the previously introduced Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS). In addition to several potential demographic, social, economic and geographic determinants of diet diversity, we defined a new empowerment score of women in nutritional household decisions. Mixed effect truncated Poisson regression was fitted to determine possible determinants of diet diversity at household level. Result The value of the HDDS ranged from 1 to 10 with mean 5.52 and standard deviation (SD) 1.54. One unit increment in variety of crop production gave a 3.37% increase in HDDS (95% CI [1.93%, 4.88%]). A one-birr increase in income generated from livestock products resulted in 2.62% increase of HDDS ([1.54%, 3.72%]). The post harvesting season contributed with a 6.43% increase in HDDS relative to the pre-harvesting season ([3.61, 9.33]). Households headed by a woman were lower by 92.34% of HDDS relative to a man-led household ([87.46, 96.70]). An additional year of education of the household head resulted in 1.19% increase of HDDS ([0.73,1.66]. As the mean empowerment score of women increased by one score point, the increment in HDDS increased by 3.80% ([1.13, 6.39]). We found no significant effect of the vicinity of the households to local markets on the HDDS. Conclusion This study has identified economic, educational, social and seasonal factors associated with HDDS, which need to be taken into consideration when planning interventions aimed at improving HDDS in rural Ethiopia and possibly in other similar regions.