Type of Material: Reports and Studies

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Institutionalizing State-Led Social and Behavioral Change (SBC) Capacity Strengthening

The Challenge Initiative (TCI) Nigeria commenced its technical support to the government of Nigeria in late 2016. It uses an innovative, demand-driven approach that encourages cities to assume an active role in the design and implementation of high impact interventions (HIIs).

At the same time, local and global partners provide a supporting and facilitating role. States self-select and apply to participate in TCI. They demonstrate their commitment to TCI by pledging significant resources, either monetary or in-kind, to financing the HIIs. In return, TCI provides technical assistance and coaching support to governments to design a family planning and AYSRH program that is cost-effective and tailored to meet the needs and circumstances of each state.

This document, ‘Institutionalizing State-Led Social and Behavior Change (SBC) Capacity Strengthening’ is a concise guide designed to support the implementation of state-led SBC interventions in Nigeria. The document outlines the technical aspects of a demand-driven approach in which state SBC programs or interventions are led by state players from conception to monitoring in order to ensure a greater likelihood of sustained interventions and outcomes. This demand-driven strategy for SBC capacity strengthening uses family planning as an entry point and can be applied to other primary health care areas throughout Nigeria and in other African countries.

Source: Gates Institute/Johns Hopkins University

Date of Publication: June 18, 2021

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Strengthening Social and Behavior Change Measurement in the RISE II Program

In RISE II, the Resilience Food Security Activity partners use a variety of social and behavior change (SBC) approaches, including community mobilization, interpersonal communication through peer group activities, and mass media, to address priority health behaviors.

Breakthrough RESEARCH conducted a mapping of family planning (FP); maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH); nutrition; and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) indicators in Niger and Burkina Faso to assess the availability of SBC-related data, including standardized indicators that could inform RISE II partner programs and support the identification and selection of standardized SBC indicators for routine programmatic data collection.

It was found that current SBC measures related to FP, MNCH, nutrition, and WASH in Niger and Burkina Faso are extremely limited and are mostly concentrated at output-level measures and individual health outcomes.

For more information contact Leanne Dougherty, ldougherty@pocouncil.org

Source: Breakthrough RESEARCH/Population Council

Date of Publication: June 18, 2021

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More Trending Topic Misinformation about Infectious Diseases Resources

Combating Rumors About Ebola: SMS Done Right

During the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in 2015, the international community quickly created a series of wide-scale social behavior change communication campaigns, a typical approach in humanitarian aid. This resulted in campaigns that bombarded local populations with massive but poorly coordinated blasts of messaging on billboards, in print, on radio and TV, through health outreach workers and community organizations, via SMS and call-in hotlines.

Internews, together with support from the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs/ Health Communication Capacity Collaborative, developed a simple but critical new tool — DeySay SMS (“Dey Say” refers to how people speak about rumors in Liberian English), which detected and managed rumors in as close to real-time as possible.

DeySay began with an SMS short code, provided by UNICEF free of charge to hundreds of health workers, NGOs and volunteers on the ground throughout Liberia. When anyone connected to the system becomes aware of a rumor, they texted it via the short code to a central coordination hub.

Once the information was collected, it was analyzed for trends and disseminated to local media partners in the field with details about the rumor so that they could work to stop its spread. When the system was fully functional, aid workers and social mobilizers in the relevant regions were put on alert so they could go door-to-door to calm anxieties and correct misinformation.

In conjunction with the rapid response system, DeySay also produced a weekly newsletter for local media throughout the country and partners on the ground. The newsletter highlighted trends in rumors and their geographic locations, and helped identify the most critical rumors at any given time. The newsletter also offered insights for local media into information gaps and challenges around Ebola and health reporting.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, InterNews

Date of Publication: June 16, 2021

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Assessment of Community Feedback Mechanisms for Rumors

This is a review of the community feedback and media monitoring systems utilized in Ghana in 2020. The review was carried out to identify existing systems and note their strengths and areas which needed improvement.

This was done in order to strengthen the capacity to respond to health emergencies. The assessment included identification of feedback mechanisms to address rumors.

Source: Breakthrough ACTION/Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: June 6, 2021

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More Trending Topic Misinformation about Infectious Diseases Resources

A Review of Perception and Myth on Causes of Cholera Infection in Endemic Areas of Nigeria

This review offers insight into the opinions and myths surrounding the real causes of cholera diseases.

Some of these are that magical/religious factors, witchcraft, eating soil, the will of a deity, and evil air in the community for cholera outbreaks. These perceptions hinder acceptance and accessibility to launch effective operational responses to cholera outbreaks, and lead to delay in providing intervention and treatment.

This paper suggests an urgent need for more research into cultural beliefs surrounding cholera and other infectious diseases.

Source: African Journal of Microbiology Research

Date of Publication: April 21, 2021

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Learning, Evaluating, and Adapting Social and Behavior Change Programming in Zambia

Breakthrough RESEARCH is evaluating the impact of integrated social and behavior change (SBC) programs—i.e., those designed to address more than one health or development issue.

This program brief documents lessons for SBC programmers implementing multi-health, community-based SBC programming with integrated health services. An iterative process by Breakthrough ACTION Zambia, from October 2018 through March 2019, identified four design concepts with strong feasibility and potential for impact and scalability. This design process included a co-design workshop, iterative testing, validation, and finalization of each design concept.

These four concepts were further refined in Breakthrough ACTION Zambia provinces and districts in collaboration with implementing partners and the Ministry of Health (MoH) Department of Health Promotion, with the final intervention designs and implementation processes determined in close collaboration with the MoH.

Source: Breakthrough RESEARCH/Population Council

Date of Publication: April 20, 2021

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More Trending Topic Gender and Intersectionality Resources

Annotated Bibliography: The Intersecting Norms of Gender and Caste in South Asia

This bibliography brings together key resources on the intersection between caste and gender and explores the central significance of gender for the operation of caste, and the impact of caste on gender. It groups the implications of the intersection of gender and caste norms into the themes of theory, education, health, violence, politics and work.

Source: ALIGN

Date of Publication: April 8, 2021

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More Trending Topic Coronavirus COVID-19 Tools Resources

Can Technology Increase COVID-19 Vaccination Rates?

The WHO Digital Health Flagship initiative has stated that digital technology could play a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic by improving communications between people and health services, empowering individuals and patients, and strengthening critical public health functions including disease surveillance. The authors of this article ask whether technology also help build trust and promote vaccination within communities that are most at risk.

The most common reason for vaccine hesitancy amongst minority groups is concern about adverse effects. Rapid and transparent reporting on potential adverse effects could go some way to improve communication and potentially reduce hesitance among minority populations. One such technology, V-safe, employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a smartphone tool to track side-effects of COVID-19 vaccines directly from patients.

A similar tool has been developed in the UK, the Yellow Card app, to enable close monitoring and real-time reporting of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. V-safe and the Yellow Card app have empowered individuals to provide real-time information of side-effects and help establish a trusted, public-led vaccine safety monitoring programme.

Source: The Lancet

Date of Publication: April 5, 2021

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COVID-19 in Africa: The Nuances of Social Distancing and Handwashing

The increasing spread of COVID-19 has necessitated enforcement of frequent hand washing, social distancing and lockdown measures as a recommended global strategy to curb community-based spread of the disease. However, pre-existing conditions in Africa impede capacity to observe hand hygiene, social distancing and lockdown.

Compliance with social distancing and handwashing is challenging in Africa due to poor urban planning in densely populated communities, food insecurity, water shortages, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, unemployment and lack of funding. The aim of this article is to unveil current challenges with social distancing and handwashing in Africa and propose innovative solutions to prevent community-based COVID-19 transmission.

One example provided is that In African slums and densely populated communities, several families share housing amenities such as toilets, kitchens and bathrooms. The demand by a large number of people to access these amenities precludes effective social
distancing, frequent handwashing and respiratory hygiene. The lack of potable water and inadequate ventilation in densely populated and poor communities further increases the risk of community transmission. Locally made hand washing amenities have supported handwashing in public places but the numbers are inadequate and hand sanitizers are expensive to purchase.

Source: Medical Journal of Zambia

Date of Publication: March 29, 2021

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Breakthrough ACTION Nigeria

Breakthrough ACTION Nigeria is a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded social and behavior change (SBC) project designed to increase the practice of priority health behaviors in the areas of malaria; maternal, newborn, and child health, including nutrition (MNCH+N); family planning/reproductive health; and tuberculosis. The project works closely with Federal and State Ministries of Health and other USAID implementing partners.

In 2020, BA Nigeria’s COVID-19 project worked to support the Nigerian Government and RCCE country-level pillar leadership (currently the Health promotion division of the FMoH, NCDC, WHO and UNICEF) with technical assistance to adapt and contextualize plans, tools, templates, and materials to support the preparedness and/or response activities required by Nigeria.

See Breakthrough ACTION Nigeria materials here.

Source: Breakthrough ACTION/Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: March 22, 2021

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