Background Tribal population – especially pregnant and lactating women are susceptible to undernutrition because of low socio-economic, cultural norms and practices regarding dietary habits and practices, market access and availability. Nutrition knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) studies offer an opportunity to better understand the socio-cultural-psychological-behavioural determinants of nutrition, providing an evidence for planning knowledge interventions.

Objectives This paper aims to assess nutrition KAP during pregnancy and lactation in selected locations of Adilabad and Komaram Bheem-Asifabad districts of Telangana, India.

Methods A cross sectional KAP baseline survey was conducted on 358 individuals in the selected locations during February-March 2020. Tablet based data collection was implemented for pregnant and lactating mothers, and frontline workers (Anganwadi workers, School teachers and Accredited Social Health Activist - ASHA workers). Data was validated, coded and analyzed using STATA. Alongside descriptive statistics, differential weightage method was adopted to generate the knowledge, attitudes and practices scores for the respondents.

Results The nutrition knowledge of pregnant and lactating mothers was inadequate less than 50 percent across all the respondents (table 1). Pregnant women scored low on attitudes regarding healthy diets compared to lactating mothers and frontline workers. Attitudes translate into practices, however the baseline data revealed that all categories of respondents were not adopting appropriate dietary and nutrition practices.

Conclusion The inadequate knowledge by all categories of respondents indicates a gap in nutrition literacy and education. It is planned to co-design, co-create innovative approaches to improve nutrition knowledge through nutrition messaging for a transformative behavior change about nutrition, healthy diets, dietary behaviors and practices.