Impact pathways of a homestead food production program on women's dietary diversity: mediation analysis of a cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh

Impact pathways of a homestead food production program on women's dietary diversity: mediation analysis of a cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Impact pathways of a homestead food production program on women's dietary diversity: mediation analysis of a cluster-randomized trial in Bangladesh Nathalie Lambrecht, Thalia Sparling, Axel Mayer, Jillian Waid, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6123359/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 12 May, 2026 Read the published version in Nature Food → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Homestead food production (HFP) can improve nutrition through multiple pathways. Understanding their relative importance can optimize intervention design and impact. Using panel data on 2611 women (8600 observations) from a 1:1 cluster-randomized trial of 96 settlements in rural Bangladesh, we conduct multiple mediation analysis to investigate the impact pathways of a three-year HFP intervention on women’s dietary diversity. The pathways analyzed jointly accounted for 90% of the intervention’s total effect on dietary diversity, amounting to an increase in 0.38 (0.28-0.48) food groups. Garden production alone accounted for 77% of the increase (β=0.32 [0.23-0.41]), thus emerging as the key component to improving women's dietary diversity. Poultry production, nutrition knowledge, and market activity made much smaller contributions. These findings can guide the design of future HFP interventions, but similar analyses are needed across a range of interventions, outcomes, and settings to build a robust evidence base for improved nutrition. Health sciences/Diseases/Nutrition disorders/Malnutrition Scientific community and society/Agriculture Scientific community and society/Developing world nutrition-sensitive intervention home garden production structural equation modeling causal mediation program impact pathways Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files FAARMPIPAppendixNatureFood.pdf Appendix Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 12 May, 2026 Read the published version in Nature Food → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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