C-Capacity #8 - The Effectiveness of SBCC

5. Social and Behavior Change Specialist - Click here for PATH employment page. (This job post is no longer active - October 12 2011).

The Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) Project is the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) proposed flagship project on nutrition and will be led by PATH. The SPRING Project aims to provide technical assistance to accelerate action on nutrition policies; emphasize and build capacity of countries to design, implement, and evaluate nutrition programs; promote delivery of nutrition interventions; and build the evidence base for effective nutrition interventions.

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Worth Reading

6. Albania Family Planning: Improving Access to and Use of Modern Contraceptive Methods among Young Men and Women

This report presents findings of an evaluation survey of two C-Change social and behavior change interventions - a mass media campaign called "For a Happy Life" and a peer education program - designed to promote modern family planning (FP) methods in Albania. The program's general objective was to shift cultural norms and values around modern contraceptive methods (MCM); create a positive environment for discussing, choosing, and using these methods; and decrease reliance on traditional family planning methods, such as withdrawal and the rhythm method. The endline survey found that exposure to the peer education program significantly affected use of MCM: those exposed were 1.7 times more likely to report MCM use when compared across all sites to those not exposed to the program. In addition, university students exposed to the peer education program but not to TV messages were 2.3 times more likely to identify multiple MCM. Those exposed only to TV messages were 1.5 times more likely to identify 3 or more forms of MCM. Exposure to both the peer education program and the TV messages increased awareness fourfold compared to those not exposed to either intervention.

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Connect

Select Forums and Communities

7. mHealth Student Group

This group provides a forum for collaboration, networking, awareness, and support for students interested in mobile health (mHealth). While the focus of the group is mHealth, information from related fields such as eHealth, and information communication technology (ICT) is welcome. Dialogue should be open, but professional. Its mission is to provide a forum that facilitates collaboration between students interested in networking with others in the emerging field of mHealth.

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8. K4Health eToolkits

Knowledge for Health Electronic Toolkits are electronic libraries of resources on a particular topic that are vetted and selected by technical experts. They are designed for health program managers, service providers, and policy makers. They cover a wide range of priority health topics. Each toolkit has an in-built discussion board to facilitate knowledge exchange among and between toolkit users and developers.

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Select Core Resources: Effectiveness of SBCC

Below you will find a selection of core resources designed to strengthen capacity by providing evidence for the impact and effectiveness of SBCC.

9. Use of Mass Media Campaigns to Change Health Behavior

This article, published in The Lancet, looks at the impact of mass media campaigns which are widely used to expose high proportions of large populations to messages through media, such as television, radio, and newspapers. Such campaigns frequently compete with factors such as pervasive product marketing, powerful social norms, and behaviors driven by addiction or habit. In this review, the authors discuss the outcomes of mass media campaigns in the context of various health-risk behaviors such as the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs; heart disease risk factors; sex-related behaviors; road safety; cancer screening and prevention; child survival; and organ or blood donation. The authors conclude that mass media campaigns can produce positive changes or prevent negative changes in health-related behaviors across large populations especially when combined with required services and products, community-based programs, and policies that support behavior change. They propose areas for improvement, such as investment in longer better-funded campaigns to achieve adequate population exposure to media messages.

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10. Catalyzing Personal and Social Change Around Gender, Sexuality, and HIV: Impact Evaluation of Puntos de Encuentro's Communication Strategy in Nicaragua

Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI) is a communication for social change initiative that aims to prevent future HIV infections in Nicaragua by means of mass communication actions, including entertainment-education (edutainment) programs, local capacity building, and the development of links, coordination, and alliances within communities. A study done of SDSIs impact indicated that greater exposure to SDSI led to positive changes on a population level. The intervention resulted in a significant reduction of stigmatising and gender-inequitable attitudes, an increase in knowledge and use of HIV-related services, and a significant increase in interpersonal communication about HIV prevention and sexual behavior. Qualitative findings indicate that SDSI played an important role in promoting community-based dialogue on key topics, strengthened youth leadership, and fostered alliances between organisations.

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11. Evaluating Social Change and Communication For Social Change: New Perspectives

In this essay, Ailish Byrne explores strategies for assessing and demonstrating the impact of social change and communication for social change processes using the meeting of HIV/AIDS Implementers in Kampala, Uganda, in June 2008 as a launching point. The author raises questions about current monitoring and evaluation (M&E) practices, particularly randomised control trials (RCTs). She analyses why sound evaluation and demonstration of the value of social change communication (SCC) appear so challenging and difficult to achieve in practice. Byrne discusses the role of critical dialogue, the sense in which evaluation is fundamentally educational, and the relational nature of this approach and then examines particular elements of participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E). She offers some specific recommendations for strengthening SCC evaluation.

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12. Understanding and Improving Access to Prompt and Effective Malaria Treatment and Care in Rural Tanzania: the ACCESS Programme

This research project on malaria interventions was designed to evaluate the ACCESS program, a program intending to understand and improve access to prompt and effective malaria treatment and care in a rural Tanzanian setting. The program's strategy, as stated here, "is based on a set of integrated interventions, including social marketing for improved care seeking at the community level as well as strengthening of quality of care at health facilities. This is complemented by a project that aims to improve the performance of drug stores. The interventions are accompanied by a comprehensive set of monitoring and evaluation activities measuring the program's performance and (health) impact. This project has resulted in multiple papers outlining a range of impacts and lessons. Some indicative findings are: • inducement of behavior change alone is not sufficient; health services which are acceptable and of good quality must be available. Hence, the behavior change campaign is also a way of empowering the community to demand for good quality health care. • training and information needs to be combined quality-improvement processes including strengthening supervision capacity. • the combination of multiple interventions on different levels of the health system, including a strong evaluation and research component gave the ACCESS Programme a comparative advantage."

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13. A 10-year Systematic Review of HIV/AIDS Mass Communication Campaigns: Have We Made Progress?

This study, carried out by researchers at the University of Kentucky details a 10-year (1998–2007) systematic review of HIV/AIDS mass communication campaigns carried out around the world that focus on sexual behavior, HIV testing, or both. The purpose was to compare the results with the last comprehensive review of such campaigns, which spanned 1986 to early 1998 and recommended that seven core principles be adhered to when conducting mass communication campaigns:

(1) conducting formative research on and about the intended audience; (2) using theory as a conceptual foundation; (3) segmenting one's audience into meaningful subgroups; (4) using a message design approach that is targeted to the audience segment(s); (5) utilising effective channels widely viewed by and persuasive for the intended audience; (6) conducting process evaluation and ensuring high message exposure; (7) using a sensitive outcome evaluation design that reduces threats to internal validity and allows causal inferences about campaign impact to be made.

Some of the key findings were that there was an increase in campaigns using formative research and theory and also relating messages to segmented audiences and using multiple media channels. The majority of campaigns reported on campaign exposure but only 30% used strong outcome evaluation designs that included control groups. Of those programs using strong evaluation techniques 80% reported having impact on key safer sexual behaviors.

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14. Promoting Healthy Timing and Spacing of Births in India through a Community-based Approach

This operations research (OR) study was carried out in India to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of using behavior change communication (BCC) as a strategy for promoting the lactational amenorrhoea method (LAM) and postpartum contraception among pregnant women. The study conducted by the Population Council's Frontiers in Reproductive Health Program (FRONTIERS), the Lala Lajpat Rai Medical College, Meerut, and the District Directorates of the Health and Family Welfare and Department of Women and Child Development found that: • the BCC model developed to promote healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy (HTSP) was effective in promoting LAM and postpartum contraception and could be rolled out easily. • misconceptions about the return of fertility and its links to the biological marker of the menstrual cycle are the main barriers in a timely beginning of postpartum contraception. • acceptance of community workers (CWs) in a family increases if counseling focuses on HTSP and its benefits to mother, child, and family. • the complementing effort by CWs of two Ministries to achieve similar objectives is feasible and provides a synergistic effect.

The key message to emerge was that young couples do want to delay their next pregnancy messages. Messages need to be developed and delivered in ways that are tailored to particular families and/or communities and meeting this challenge requires an effective and well-planned communication strategy.

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15. From Inception to Large Scale: The Geração Biz Programme in Mozambique

A joint publication of the WHO and Pathfinder International, this study describes a multisectoral adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) program implemented by the Government of Mozambique. Written for program and project managers at national, district, and local levels, the study provides an example of how to design and implement a multisectoral program that is intended to be scaled up from the beginning. Some of its key evaluation findings were:

• the program had had a significant impact on young people's knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. • its multisectoral approach contributed to improved communications and interactions among government institutions and sectors. • the capacity-building and technical assistance related to ASRH (including HIV) competencies, management skills, internal policies, strategic planning, and public policy development was viewed by the three sectors as useful and relevant to the achievement of program goals.

Overall, it was concluded that Geração Biz was a well-known and respected program with good potential for sustainability and expansion.

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16. An Assessment of HIV and AIDS Radio Campaign Messages in Zambia: Documenting Change

This report by Panos Institute Southern Africa assesses HIV/AIDS radio campaign messages in Zambia and the impact they have on their intended audiences. It was part of a larger study that included Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It contains tips on how to carry out an effective HIV/AIDS radio campaign and to advise media users on the most effective way of presenting HIV/AIDS information on the radio. The Zambia study found that radio is the best medium of communication in Zambia, as it reaches the majority of people, is cheap, and is widely accessible. However, despite radio being so useful and convenient, the report states that there are currently insufficient HIV/AIDS radio programs/advertisements. The research found that existing programs did not communicate information that Zambians are looking for and that respondents found information to be shallow, fragmented, and sometimes incorrect. This was mainly due to the fact that most radio presenters lack in-depth knowledge, do not research HIV/AIDS-related issues, and receive little or no support from their supervisors. However, the study also found that in cases where programs were initiated by sponsors, messages tended to be of better quality. In addition, the report states that one station's programming was deemed to be of better quality because of the involvement of affected groups and people with technical information on the subject matter.

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The C-Picks e-magazine, supported by C-Change and implemented by The Communication Initiative, is an e-magazine that highlights social and behavior change communication (SBCC) case studies, reports, analyses, and resources in the health sector (HIV and AIDS, family planning and reproductive health, malaria, and maternal and antenatal health).

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Training

Select Opportunities

17. K4Health Communities of Practice (CoPs) eLearning Course
Online course - Ongoing

Online communities of practice (CoPs) provide a virtual space for people who share a common interest and are working towards a shared goal. This course aims to give the learner an overview of online CoPs, including the uses, benefits, and challenges of creating and maintaining CoPs. This course is for public health professionals who would like to learn more about online CoPs and their potential to help groups achieve shared goals. After taking this course, participants are expected to be able to: • Define online CoPs • Understand the usefulness of online CoPs • List benefits of creating an online CoP • List challenges of maintaining an online CoP

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18. Entertainment Education for Behavior Change
Online course - Ongoing

Entertainment Education for Behavior Change is a course offered by the department of Health, Behavior, and Society of the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health under the auspices of OpenCourseWare - therefore, it is not for credit towards any degree or certificate offered by the school. However, the syllabus, key content, and materials are available for open access. This course examines and teaches ways in which education can be subtly but effectively worked into both new and time-honored genres of entertainment to foster positive behavior change and life improvement in both developing countries and local environments.

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The following opportunities have already occurred (as of October 12 2011).

19. Social and Behavior Change Communication Approaches

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20. Communication, Media, and Society

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21. Behavior Change and Communication in HIV/AIDS

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22. Summer Institute for Public Health Practice: Health Communication

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The C-Capacity Online Resource Center continues to seek new knowledge and experiences in support of capacity strengthening for social and behavior change communication - your case studies, strategic thinking, support materials, and any other relevant documentation. Please contact cchangeorc@comminit.com

Please visit the C-Capacity Online Resource Center for more resources on SBCC.

This publication is made possible by the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of Agreement No. GPO-A-00-07-00004-00. The contents are the responsibility of The Communication Initiative and the C-Change project, managed by AED, and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.