Health Communication Message Guide

This guide serves as a reference for health communication interventions, by providing a set of core messages that are accurate and consistent. It enable practitioners to communicate standardized messages to communities and audiences.

Different guides are available for different health areas including Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (RMNCH); Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH); Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD); Malaria and TB. The Federal Ministry of Health and Regional Health Bureaus have endorsed the guides.

Source: Communication for Health Ethiopia

Date of Publication: February 6, 2020

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The Change Challenge Fund: Learning by Leading

This activity was part of the Communicate for Health Ghana project, 2015-2019. Learning by Leading was the underlying principle of Communicate for Health’s capacity building strategy. Among the four components of this strategy, the project’s Change Challenge Fund translated this principle into practice in the boldest and most sustained way.

The Change Challenge Fund, or CCF, was specifically designed for those who had already successfully completed at least one other skills-building component: the Change Agent Development Program (CADP) or the Set for Change Action Learning Set (SfC).

Like these other programs, the CCF was competitive. But unlike them, the CCF asked applicants to write a formal proposal for funding— just as they would submit to a client or donor— outlining a specific health problem, a target area, an implementation strategy including partners, and a budget. Those awarded grants would then have the opportunity to put all their newly developed skills into practice, carrying out a small-scale SBCC project over a seven to ten-month period in the area where they worked on a topic that concerned them personally, and supporting the GoodLife objectives.

Source: Communicate for Health Ghana

Date of Publication: January 28, 2020

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Capacity Building in Social and Behavior Change Communication Focus on People, Focus on Organization, Focus on Collaboration

The Communicate for Health Ghana Project (2014-2019) had as one of its goals capacity strengthening in social and behavior change. This brief explains how this was done within the Health Promotion Department of the Ghana Health Service.

Source: Communicate for Health Ghana

Date of Publication: January 28, 2020

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Success Story: Media Development and Capacity Building in Action

The Ghana Communicate for Health Project ran from 2015-2019. As part of its efforts to address regional perspectives and needs, Communicate for Health conducted two collaborative workshops to discuss region-specific audience research and design creative materials that would address identified social and behavioral barriers and benefits in key health areas.

Both workshops engaged multiple private sector design partners, regional health promotion officers (RHPOs), technical focal persons for malaria and nutrition, representatives of local media houses, USAID implementing partners (IPs), and other regional stakeholders to produce GoodLife materials for their areas of the country.

Both workshops featured intensive SBCC capacity building experiences for participants while strengthening networks for sustainable regional collaboration.

In an evaluation of the workshop process and outcomes, participants gave the overall experience a score of 8.3 out of a possible 10 points, indicating a high level of learning and satisfaction. Some said the workshop was the first time they had the opportunity to work on each step of material development—from a creative brief to actual production. Many appreciated the opportunity to review audience research for their particular areas.

Source: Communicate for Health Ghana

Date of Publication: January 28, 2020

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Can Mobile Phone Surveys Replace House-To-House Data Collection?

This brief describes an effort to use interactive voice recognition to assess media exposure and behaviors in Ghana.

Communicate for Health and Viamo developed a survey design with three major objectives:

Assess trends in exposure to health communication messages among the project’s three Life Stage audiences
Assess trends in behavioral determinants and behaviors
Evaluate the feasibility and of collecting project monitoring and evaluation data via mobile phone

Communicate for Health found that mobile phone surveys using IVR random digit dial sampling is an alternative or supplemental data collection method for social and behavior change monitoring in low resource settings. In Ghana, Communicate for Health found that the methodology is suitable for reaching populations with high access to mobile phones, especially people 35 and younger, from urban or peri-urban areas, and males.

Source: FHI360

Date of Publication: January 9, 2020

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Livelihoods, Agriculture and Health Interventions in Action (LAHIA) Project

The LAHIA project is funded by the USAID Office of Food for Peace with the goal to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition among poor, rural households (HH).

The project is improving the nutritional status of children under 5 and pregnant and lactating women, increasing access to food for vulnerable households, reducing vulnerability to shocks, and improving women’s participation at household and community levels.

Project interventions strive to facilitate changing perceptions, attitudes and behaviors that will lead to acceptance of women’s participation in household decisions, and achieving equity in access to and control of resources. The project uses the established Husbands’ School approach to involve men as change agents in women’s reproductive health decisions and increase inter-couple dialogues. Women’s Savings and Loan Groups and the associated, Small Businesses increase social cohesion among women, while also increasing their economic status, leadership skills, and decision-making power. Project Community Champions also help create a community-wide dialogue about women’s roles in society. Women’s leadership is also evident from the local community institutions they now participate, in such as Village Development Committees, Village Early Warning System, and WASH Management Committees.

Source: USAID

Date of Publication: November 25, 2019

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Landscape Conservation in Western Tanzania

The Landscape Conservation in Western Tanzania (LCWT) activity works to protect endangered chimpanzee populations, safeguard their habitat through effective land use planning, and empower local communities by supporting more productive and sustainable livelihoods in the Gombe-Masito-Ugalla (GMU) landscape.

The program’s activities include:

Natural Resource Management: Building the capacity of local governments to facilitate conservation practice and effective natural resource management.
Land Use Planning & Sustainable Development: Helping local governments and communities implement sustainable land use plans and livelihood development.
Population, Health and Environment: Expanding activities to improve awareness of and access to reproductive health and family planning resources.
Monitoring: Improving monitoring of conservation and development targets and threats using innovative technologies to compile, analyze and share data as part of a decision support and alert system. The information from the system will enable JGI and local stakeholders to test, validate and adapt decisions that will guide LCWT activities.
Environmental Education: Expanding the reach and effectiveness of community-based sensitization and environmental education efforts to inspire behavior change that will protect chimpanzees and their habitats

Source: USAID, Jane Goodall Institute

Date of Publication: November 24, 2019

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Integrating Family Planning into Development Food Security Activities: Formative Research with the Njira Project in Malawi

This study investigated the demand and supply side barriers to accessing family planning that women with young children, adolescent girls and young women face.

Employing a user-centered design, the research explored how Njira can create acceptable and feasible linkages—tailored to the needs of these priority target groups—from its project platforms to government family planning services. The study also explored community perspectives on connections between population growth, family planning, health, and food security to leverage the project’s health and non-health platforms in promoting social acceptability of family planning use.

Source: USAID, FANTA III

Date of Publication: November 24, 2019

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Supporting Scalable, Youth-Powered Programming at the Community Level in Ethiopia: The Case of Smart Start

In 2016, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, PSI launched Adolescents 360 (A360), a 4.5-year program that works directly with young people to develop and deliver interventions that aim to increase demand for, and voluntary uptake of, modern contraception among girls aged 15-19 in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. This technical brief presents the case of Smart Start, A360’s intervention in Ethiopia, offering lessons for similar AYSRH programs seeking to design and implement scalable, sustainable, community-based programming for adolescents.

Program evidence to date suggests that Smart Start resonates with girls, couples, and key stakeholders which influence girls’ decision-making around contraception. Furthermore, by expanding the ability of the public health system to reach adolescent girls and couples in relevant, meaningful ways, Smart Start is viewed by stakeholders at all levels of the Ethiopian FMOH as addressing a critical need for improved programming for adolescents.

Source: Population Services International Adolescents360

Date of Publication: November 8, 2019

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Taking Aim at Zika (and Other Mosquito-Borne Illnesses)

This blog describes CCP’s Breakthrough ACTION‘s work in five Central American and Caribbean nations to train upwards of 500 people in interpersonal communication skills for those who go door-to-door to help people prevent Zika – and other illnesses carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

In an additional four Caribbean countries, the project has also led trainings in how to use social and behavior change approaches to deliver the messages far and wide. The main issue everyone was encountering was that more than two years after WHO announced that Zika was no longer a public health emergency, many people no longer saw it as a threat.

The trainings focused on skills for household visits to talk about Zika, this being a better way to deliver the messages to motivate families to change their behaviors and how to deal with common myths and misperceptions.

The team developed seven recommended behaviors for Zika prevention:

Use mosquito repellent (DEET, Picaridin, IR3535 and eucalyptus lemon oil only), as directed by each product manufacturer during pregnancy to reduce the risk of Zika transmission from mosquito bites.
Use condom to prevent sexual transmission of Zika during pregnancy.
Regularly remove unintentional standing water both inside and outside of the house, and in communal areas.
Cover water storage containers at all times with a cover that is tight fitting and does not warp or touch the water.
Eliminate mosquito eggs from the walls of frequently used water storage containers weekly.
Attend prenatal check-ups to monitor the pregnancy and learn about the risk of contracting Zika and how to prevent it.
Seek counseling from a trained provider about modern family planning methods if you do not plan to become pregnant.

More Communication for Health Ethiopia Resources

Health Communication Message Guide

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More Communicate for Health Ghana Resources

The Change Challenge Fund: Learning by Leading

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More Communicate for Health Ghana Resources

Capacity Building in Social and Behavior Change Communication Focus on People, Focus on Organization, Focus on Collaboration

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Success Story: Media Development and Capacity Building in Action

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More Trending Topic Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Resources

Can Mobile Phone Surveys Replace House-To-House Data Collection?

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Livelihoods, Agriculture and Health Interventions in Action (LAHIA) Project

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Landscape Conservation in Western Tanzania

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