In collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya, an interdisciplinary team of Emory faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students and ILRI staff completed a pilot study of the effects of dairy intensification on gender relations and child nutrition and health outcomes in the Rift Valley Province, Kenya during 2010.   The study collected primary qualitative and quantitative data to test hypotheses about the pathways by which increasing dairy intensification (or productivity) in low-income smallholder households could influence human (and especially child) nutrition.  The four hypothesized pathways of effect in which gender is a component were: (1) changes in milk consumption and changes in diet and dietary diversity of target groups including children, (2) changes in the time allocation of women or children's primary caregivers, (3) changes in income, including women's control of income from dairy and trade-offs between the sale and consumption of dairy, and (4) changes in household expenditures (including health expenditures) and women's decision-making in these expenditures.

A draft report  from the study has been written  and a final report will be published as a ILRI Discussion Paper later in 2011. The work was funded by the Global Health Institute, Halle Institute, and Development Studies Program at Emory University, and the East Africa Dairy Development project under a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.