Amakomaya [Mother’s Love]: mHealth project (Nepal, 2011 onwards)
Amakomaya, translated as Mother’s Love in Nepali, was initiated by a dedicated team of local ICT experts and health professionals when they received a USD4,000 grant from the Internet Society in 2011. Committed to tackle the challenges that Nepali women face during pregnancy and childbirth; and equipped with the skills to leverage opportunities, including those that the Internet and mobile communications offer, the team is making a series of breakthroughs, particularly in women's health education, changing community practices that marginalize women, and the digitization of health records. The full details of the case study can be found in the following pdf: CaseStudy-Amakomaya_Nepal (Source: Christine Apikul) ...
Nudging and habit change for open defecation : new tactics from behavioral science (WSP/World Bank Working Paper 2016)
Open defecation (OD) remains a critical global health challenge, afecting almost 1 billion people around the world and contributing signifcantly to the estimated 842,000 people who die each year because of poor sanitation, hygiene practices, and unsafe water supplies (WHO, 2014). To date, most behavior change frameworks for addressing OD have focused on relatively conscious, “reflective” drivers of behavior, including people’s emotions (e.g., pride, shame), rational knowledge (e.g., of germ theory), social norms, and explicit action plans (e.g., commitments to change; see Sigler, 2014). Using the framework popularized by Kahneman (2011), these factors can be described as "System 2" drivers of behavior (i.e., relatively conscious and motivational factors). It is now well established, however, that human behavior can also be heavily influenced by "System 1" drivers (i.e. relatively automatic, cue-driven drivers; Marteau et al., 2012; Wood & Neal, 2015). System 1 factors of particular relevance to OD include people's hygiene habits (e.g., mindlessly repeated behaviors cued by context) and "nudges" (i.e., small changes to the environment that can channel decision making and behavior in new ways, Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). This working paper draws on basic scientific findings from psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics to propose a framework of ...
Factors Impacting the Effectiveness of Community Health Worker Behavior Change: A Literature Review (Health Communication Capacity Collaborative 2015)
Social and behavior change communication (SBCC), which uses communication to positively influence the social dimensions of health and well-being, is an important strategy for improving health services at the provider level. As community health workers (CHWs) play an increasingly important role in providing health services, there is also an increasing focus on to how to use SBCC strategies to build CHWs’ capacity to offer quality services to the community members they serve. A key step in designing and implementing effective SBCC programs for CHWs is understanding the barriers and facilitators that effect CHWs in providing these services. The aim of this literature review is to examine the barriers and facilitators to CHW service provision in three areas: knowledge and competency barriers in which CHWs lack the skills and knowledge to provide services, structural and contextual barriers in which systemic and environmental factors influence CHWs’ ability to provide services, and motivational barriers in which social norms and attitudes that effect CHWs willingness to provide services. In all three areas, findings revealed that CHWs face significant barriers,ranging from lack of materials and high workloads to ingrained attitudes and insufficient training. The results and recommendations in this paper can be used to anticipate ...
Talks and plenary session videos now online from first International Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) Summit 2016
The first International SBCC Summit took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2016 and was designed to bring together the global community of social and behavior change communication (SBCC) organizations, professionals and researchers to advance the practice of SBCC in health. 17 of the talks and keynote speeches from the Summit have now been uploaded by the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative and can be viewed online via You Tube ...
Community Video for Nutrition Guide: Using Participatory, Community-Led Videos to Improve Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition (SPRING, Digital Green 2015)
This Community Video for Nutrition Guide is a joint product of SPRING and Digital Green (DG), an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) registered in the United States and India. This guide is based on our organizations' combined experience in implementing a proof of concept project between January and October 2013, formally known as the SPRING/DG Collaboration and Feasibility Study. This 10-month project focused on integrating content on high-impact maternal, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN) practices, including information on key hygiene-related behaviors, into the existing DG community-led video project, which is predominantly focused on promoting improved agricultural practices among small-scale and marginal women farmers. The target audience was pregnant women and/or mothers with children under the age of two participating in existing self-help groups (SHGs) in 30 villages in two blocks of Keonjhar District of Odisha, India. The SHGs also included a wider representation of female community members, who were targeted as key influencers for the recommended behaviors. Given that the target audience included a large number of influencers that wouldn’t be adopting the practices themselves, the project not only tracked adoptions, but also promotions of MIYCN behaviors. The guide is specifically intended to provide organizations, projects, and practitioners interested in ...
Evidence of Effective Approaches to Social and Behavior Change Communication for Preventing and Reducing Stunting and Anemia: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review (SPRING 2014)
Evidence suggests that simply increasing knowledge and awareness of good nutrition practices rarely leads to sustained behavior change, nor is sustained change in nutrition behavior likely to be achieved through a single activity. Several specific behaviors or practices impact nutritional status during the critical first 1,000 days (pregnancy to age two), while complex, contextual determinants also influence individual decisions to consider, test, adopt and sustain a given behavior or practice. The field of Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) is a collection of approaches and tools informed by behavioral theories and used to design public health interventions. This review, part of a broader effort by SPRING to support governments and other stakeholders in their delivery of high impact nutrition practices, provides a summary of peer-reviewed evidence regarding the effectiveness of SBCC approaches to increase the uptake of three key nutrition behaviors: women's dietary practices during pregnancy and lactation, breastfeeding practices, and complementary feeding practices. SBCC interventions have been broadly categorized into three areas: interpersonal communication; use of media; and community/social mobilization. This review also identifies gaps in the evidence and recommendations for further areas of study. This review includes a total of 91 studies identified using the Ovid MEDLINE database ...
Strengthening Community Platforms to Address Gender Norms (AIDSFree Technical Brief 2016)
In 2014, there were 25.8 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of them women. Several studies have reported that girls’ and women’s risk of HIV infection is associated with gender inequality and violence. Harmful gender norms can lead to risky behaviors, violence, substance abuse, pursuit of multiple sexual partners, and domination of women. These norms affect not only men and women but also families and communities. This technical brief describes the elements of programmatic approaches to strengthen community platforms to address gender equality and harmful gender norms. It draws examples from successful community platforms for addressing GBV and more specifically, from the SASA! program in Uganda designed by Raising Voices ...
Effects of a Media Campaign on Breastfeeding Behaviours in Sindh Province, Pakistan (World Health & Population Article, 2015)
Abstract: A 2013–2014 media campaign in Sindh Province, Pakistan, promoted healthy breastfeeding practices. According to data from annual household surveys, 26.7% of mothers saw one television spot and 19.4% saw another. The proportion of mothers who received breastfeeding information via television increased from 8.3% to 29.4% after the campaign (p≤0.05) and the percentage receiving information from doctors, mothers-in-law and relatives/friends nearly doubled (p≤0.05). However, no improvements in breastfeeding practices were reported. The experience in Sindh suggests that, in order to change breastfeeding practices, mass media interventions should be linked with other interventions, such as provider counseling, that involve influential family members in addition to mothers. Source: World Health & Population, 16(2) December 2015: 39-45.doi:10.12927/whp.2016.24494 ...
Risk communication and community engagement for Zika virus prevention and control: A guidance and resource package for country offices for coordination, planning, key messages and actions (WHO, IFRC, UNICEF 2016)
The purpose of this document is to provide detailed guidance for the response strategies under the SRF. UN agencies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), INGOs, NGOs and CSOs can use the guidance to support the Government in the development and implementation of research driven, adaptable and context-driven risk communication and community engagement interventions. These interventions will help increase the understanding of the Zika virus and its potential consequences, prevent its spread, mitigate the impact on individuals and families, in particular women, and communities and contribute to on-going research to improve response activities and control efforts. This document uses the best available scientific evidence, available at this time, on prevention and control of the Zika virus and its potential link to microcephaly and other neurological disorders. The messages, actions and related supporting information will be revised periodically based on the epidemiology and evolution of the Zika virus outbreak, forms of transmission, and further information about Zika and its potential link to microcephaly and other neurological disorders. Updated versions will be circulated as needed. This guidance operationalizes the risk communication and community engagement strategies outlined in the SRF by focusing on messages and behaviours for personal ...
Enhancing Nutrition and Food Security during the First 1,000 Days through Gender-sensitive Social and Behavior Change (CORE Group Technical Resource Guide and Brief 2015)
This technical resource guide, along with the complemenary technical brief, is designed to build the capacity of development practitioners working in nutrition and food security to plan, implement, and evaluate gender-sensitive SBC programming in order to improve nutritional outcomes for pregnant and lactating women (PLW) and children under two. It does this by providing an overview, rationale, critical actions, best practices, resources, and tools for integrating gender-sensitive SBC into project activities. The technical resource guide seeks to achieve three main goals: Increase the reader's knowledge about the importance of gender-sensitive SBC programming in nutrition and food security programs/projects; Strengthen the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and documentation of gender-sensitive projects and gender mainstreaming of organizations to reduce gender gaps in nutrition outcomes; and Share resources and tools to support gender-sensitive SBC programming ...
‘Communication en matière de santé pour les gestionnaires’ – Global Health eLearning Center (Centre eLearning pour la santé mondiale) session de formation en ligne
Les interventions de communication en matière de santé efficaces représentent un élément essentiel des programmes de santé publique. La recherche montre que la communication interactive basée sur la théorie qui suit un processus prouvé de conception et de mise en œuvre peut augmenter les connaissances, changer les attitudes et les normes, et produire des changements dans un vaste éventail de comportements. Ce cours vise à accroître la compréhension de l'apprenant des principes fondamentaux de la communication en matière de santé. Il inclut également des conseils pour gérer les projets de communication en matière de santé, une orientation sur la manière de déterminer la qualité des interventions et les documents, et des liens aux preuves de l'efficacité des programmes de communication en matière de santé ...
‘Health Communication for Managers’ – Global Health eLearning Center’s online training session
Effective health communication interventions are an essential component of public health programming. Research shows that theory-driven, interactive communication that follows a proven process for design and implementation can increase knowledge, shift attitudes and norms, and produce changes in a wide range of behaviors. This course aims to increase the learner’s understanding of the basic principles of health communication. It also includes tips for managing health communication projects, guidance on how to determine quality of interventions and materials, and links to evidence of the effectiveness of health communication programs ...