Effect of Social and Behavior Change Activities on Malaria Behaviors in Guyana

In 2019, the USAID-funded Breakthrough ACTION project, led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and other partners, collaborated with the Guyana Ministry of Health’s National Malaria Program to develop a social behavior change program to improve priority malaria-related health behaviors among gold miners within Regions 7 and 8 of Guyana.

The SBC program strategy was based on the ideation model of social behavior change, which shows how different ideas, that is, “ideational factors,” about behavior, impact whether an individual practices a behavior. This research report highlights key findings from research activities undertaken by Breakthrough ACTION Guyana to assess the reach and behavioral impact of SBC activities and summarize key learnings about the work to improve malaria-related behaviors among the gold mining population in Guyana.

Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Communication programs

Date of Publication: July 1, 2024

Approaching Provider Behavior Change Monitoring and Evaluation With a Social-Ecological Lens Brief

The Approaching Provider Behavior Change Monitoring and Evaluation With a Social-Ecological Lens brief builds on Breakthrough ACTON’s suite of provider behavior change (PBC) tools, which support the application of a social-ecological lens to design and implementation of PBC interventions. This suite of tools consists of the Provider Behavior Ecosystem Map and the Provider Behavior Change Toolkit. PBC interventions that are designed and implemented using a social-ecological lens must be monitored and evaluated through the same lens.

This brief explores the new frontiers of applying a social-ecological lens to the monitoring and evaluation of PBC interventions. It uses the organizing structure of the Provider Behavior Ecosystem Map to discuss insights, findings, and recommendations. There is also a list of illustrative indicators for consideration and use.

The primary audience for this brief is program planners and implementers working at the intersection of health systems strengthening, service delivery, and social and behavior change or otherwise working to understand and improve provider behavior through PBC interventions.

Although this brief and set of tools focuses on family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) service delivery and use related examples, they can be applied more broadly to other health areas. This broader application is important given how commonly FP/RH providers offer services across health areas, especially in integrated service delivery.

A short instructional video in English and French was developed to provide an overview of the brief.

Last modified: June 10, 2024

Language: English, French

Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Year of Publication: 2024

MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience Social and Behavior Change Strategy to Enhance Resilience

Proactive social and behavior change activities among health providers, community health workers, and community members before, during, and after shocks and stresses increase health resilience and prevent disruption in health services for families and communities. This technical brief includes SBC strategies that MOMENTUM Integrated Health Resilience is taking to enhance health resilience in fragile settings. 

This resource is available in English and French.


MOMENTUM Résilience Sanitaire Intégrée travaille en partenariat avec des pays confrontés à des situations de choc et de tension permanentes (par exemple, des institutions faibles, des conflits, des catastrophes). Les activités proactives de changement social et comportemental proposées aux prestataires de soins de santé, aux agents de santé communautaires et aux membres des communautés avant, pendant et après l’événement induisant choc et stress améliorent la résilience sanitaire et préviennent les perturbations des services de soins de santé destinés aux familles et aux communautés.

Cette ressource est disponible en anglais et en français.

Last modified: May 23, 2024

Language: English, French

Source: USAID- MOMENTUM

Year of Publication: 2022

Learning from MOMENTUM: Community Engagement and Systems Strengthening Approaches to Addressing Gender-Based Violence

Published in recognition of the 2023 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) campaign, this brief highlights six innovative approaches—related to community engagement and system strengthening—for addressing GBV. The case studies from three MOMENTUM projects offer practical insights for gender experts, practitioners, and advocates, particularly those working in GBV pre­vention and response, to apply and adapt in their own work.

Last modified: February 21, 2024

Source: USAID MOMENTUM

Year of Publication: 2023

Gender Equity and Male Engagement: It only works when everyone plays

In this brief, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in collaboration with the Cartier Foundation, presents guidance for nurturing meaningful engagement with men and boys to transform the social and gender norms that reinforce gender inequality and harm both women and men. This brief provides an overview of the field and guidance for stakeholders to support the funding, design, and implementation of programming that effectively engages men and boys in creating sustainable gender norm transformation.

Last modified: February 21, 2024

Language: English

Source: International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and Cartier Foundation

Year of Publication: 2018

A Structural and Provider Behavior Change Approach to Enhancing Respectful, Integrative, Responsive Care for Hospitalized Young Children (0–24 months)

This brief describes a co-creation process and a resulting provider behavior change intervention approach that can be adapted to similar low- and middle-income hospital contexts. It offers policy and program managers details around each intervention component, linking to an accompanying provider orientation PowerPoint and other training materials/job aids. Finally, it recommends a few lessons to guide those interested in engaging in a similar co-creation and implementation approach.

Last modified: February 5, 2024

Language: English

Source: Population Council

Year of Publication: 2023

Structural and behavior change interventions to improve experience of care for sick very young children (0 to 24 months of age) and their parents in hospital settings in Kenya—Preliminary results: Baseline provider survey”

This study documents and assesses the dynamics of implementing interventions to shift behaviors of providers to improve facility-based experiences of and parents/caregivers in caring for their sick newborns, infants, and toddlers up to 24 months of age in hospital settings.

Source: Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs

Date of Publication: February 5, 2024

Working Within the Food System: Gender Considerations for Achieving Improved Diets

Investments should enhance women’s roles in agriculture and off-farm livelihoods; provide workplace support to offset risks to household nutrition; and ensure opportunities for income generation, decision-making, and control over household income. Investments should also increase access to high-quality social and behavior change activities, and engage men and boys to address gender norms that restrict food system participation.

The brief suggests how to take evidence-based actions that consider gender when designing and implementing approaches to improve diets for all through the food system. It offers ideas across the food system for promoting gender equality while improving diets. The brief reinforces the importance of considering the programming context to prioritize actions that address barriers and support practices most likely to impact diet and nutrition outcomes.

Last modified: January 2, 2024

Language: English

Source: USAID Advancing Nutrition

Year of Publication: 2022

Effectively Measuring Training: Building Knowledge and Skills for Nutrition Programs

Improving the skills and competencies of the global nutrition workforce (e.g., nutrition program managers and technical staff) to design, plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate nutrition services is one of the key capacity gaps that the nutrition sector needs to address to improve the coverage and effectiveness of nutrition service provision and ultimately health and nutrition outcomes.

This brief provides practical information about how to assess nutrition training programs, utilizing best practices from the capacity strengthening field to create more effective and efficient programs.

Last modified: January 1, 2024

Language: English

Source: USAID Advancing Nutrition

Year of Publication: 2023

Call to Action for Strengthening Nutrition Content in Pre-Service Training

Investing in pre-service training is an effective and sustainable way to improve nutrition services, but it requires collaboration among governments, academic institutions, professional associations, funders, and technical experts to ensure curricula prepare frontline health workers to deliver quality nutrition services.

On March 1, 2023, USAID Advancing Nutrition engaged key stakeholders in Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, and the Kyrgyz Republic in a virtual consultative meeting to better understand the complexity of the challenges and opportunities around strengthening the nutrition components of pre-service training for health workers. This brief summarizes the consultation discussions generated, the opportunities highlighted, the lessons shared, and the recommendations jointly formulated as a way forward. It issues a call to action to all stakeholders to better integrate nutrition into pre-service education and more regularly facilitate curriculum review and updates.

Last modified: December 29, 2023

Language: English, French, Portuguese

Source: USAID Advancing Nutrition

Year of Publication: 2023