 The Drum Beat – 663 – Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) |
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| This issue of The Drum Beat highlights recent resources offered on the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) project website, which is based at the Center for Communication Programs within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This partnership between The CI and HC3 centres around the following theme sites, which focus on health communication, learning around it, evidence, and impact:
Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), HC3 works to foster vibrant communities of practice at the national, regional, and global levels that support evidence-based programming and innovation in social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) programmes focused primarily on: family health and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, and communicable diseases such as malaria. Across all areas of work, the HC3 approach includes working with faith-based organisations and encouraging community engagement. More information on HC3 may be accessed here: «Fast Facts about the Health Communication Capacity Project» [PDF]. |
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| THEORY: SBCC RESEARCH BRIEFS |
| HC3 is developing a series of research briefs on a variety of communication theories to help SBCC professionals design and implement their programmes. The primers describe the theory and provide guidance on when it should be used, also including information for implementers and a case study to illustrate how the theory works in practice. |
| The first two, issued March 24 2014, focus on the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Diffusion of Innovations model. For summaries, see: |
| 1. Theory of Planned Behavior |
| According to «Theory of Planned Behavior: An HC3 Research Primer» [PDF]: «When combined, attitudes towards the behavior, subjective norm and the perceived behavioral control result in the formation of an intention. Understanding these beliefs and the intentions they produce can provide clues on how to impact behavior change.» This theory holds (referencing the resource cited above) that individuals are more likely to intend to have healthy behaviours if they: have positive attitudes about the behaviours, believe that subjective norms are favourable towards those behaviours, and believe they are able to perform those behaviours correctly. |
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| 2. Diffusion of Innovations: An HC3 Research Primer |
| «This model highlights the uncertainties associated with new behaviors and helps public health program implementers consider ways to resolve these uncertainties.» This research brief describes the Diffusion of Innovations research model and when it should be used in designing SBCC programmes. In brief, this research model «describes how a new idea, product or positive health behavior spreads through a community or social structure.» It identifies factors that can influence how quickly an idea or behaviour is adopted. |
| Stay tuned for more HC3 Research Primers. |
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| RESOURCES: HEALTH COMPASS FOCUS PACKAGES |
| «It’s important when designing and implementing a social and behavior change communication program to be able to find not only outstanding tools for your program development and management armory, but also to find what others have done. But how do you clear away the clutter to find exactly what you need? The Health COMpass team is here to help you Focus!….Each month we will cull through all the numerous resources to provide a handy list of outstanding materials on specific topics.» |
| To search the HC3 site for the latest Focus Packages, click here. For examples, see these CI summaries: |
| 3. Focus Package: Faith-Based Resources |
| This resource provides access to health communication tools and project materials designed or adapted specifically to work with faith leaders or within specific faith communities. Health COMpass recognises the important role faith and faith-based organisations (FBOs) play in many rural, economically poor, and under-served communities, and feel that they can provide «a safe and comfortable entrée to family planning, child survival, HIV/AIDS prevention, maternal and neonatal health, HTSP [healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy], PMTCT [prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV], and myriad other health areas, for community members who might not normally seek such services from other sources.» |
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| 4. Focus Package: Gender |
| This resource provides access to health communication tools and project materials that focus on gender. One example: «Family Planning, HIV/AIDS & Sexually Transmitted infections (STIs), and Gender Matrix: A Tool for Youth Reproductive Health Programming.» «The matrix can assist technical experts, programme managers, health providers, peer educators, and others to determine what topics and interventions best fit into their own respective programmes while taking cultural paradigms into consideration.» The resource also includes a link to a full list of over 70 gender-focused materials available on the Health COMpass site. |
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| 5. Focus Package: Reaching Urban Youth |
| The materials presented here emphasise SBCC, which «has been identified as a successful strategy for reaching youth on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues» although urban youth face challenges such as «social marginalisation, a mobile populations, informal settlements, and violence and crime.» Community-level examples include guides for peer educators, lesson plans, and training manuals. For individuals, apps for smart phones, comic books, and other written resources are available. |
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| HC3 WEBINARS, TRAININGS, AND EVENTS |
| HC3 offers various webinars and SBCC online courses. |
| In addition to all that is detailed at the above URLs, sample CI summaries of HC3 capacity-building offerings include: |
| 6. eLearning Series on Evidence-based Malaria Social & Behavior Change Communication: From Theory to Program Evaluation – Ongoing online training series |
| This online training series is designed to strengthen capacity on how to use evidence and data to create strong SBCC programmes for malaria prevention and control. According to NetWorks, the presenters are leaders in the field of SBCC (all from the Center for Communication Programs Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health). Learners can move through the modules at their own pace. |
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| 7. Knowledge Management for Public Health in Low and Middle Income Countries – Jun 18-20 2014 – Behavior and Society Summer Institute – Baltimore, MD, United States |
| The Health, Behaviour and Society Department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs (JHU-CCP) is offering the 3-credit course «Knowledge Management for Public Health in Low and Middle Income Countries», Wednesday, June 18 through Friday, June 20 2014 9:00AM – 5:00PM. It «[i]ntroduces participants to and demystifies jargon behind Knowledge Management (KM), an intentional process that includes capturing, storing, organizing, and exchanging knowledge to better inform decision-making and to improve public health outcomes. In the context of public health, introduces KM as a systematic approach to ensure that the latest research is accessible and applied to public health practice.» |
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| ONE HC3 PROGRAMMATIC FOCUS: SBCC FOR CHILD SURVIVAL |
| 8. Demonstrating Child Survival Successes at the Community Level |
| Informed by an article regarding the training of frontline maternal, newborn, and child health workers in South Sudan, this HC3 research brief explores the strategy of community-level approaches. The intervention for frontline health workers (FHWs) used a train the trainer model. Results included a greater likelihood of FHW referring patients to a health facility post-training and a greater reported use of cleaned and boiled delivery equipment after each use (reproductive health), no maternal deaths 30 days after the training, and an improved survival rate of newborns born not breathing (all received additional resuscitation). [Feb 2014] |
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| 9. Interpersonal Communication Can Work in Child Survival Programmes |
| This research brief describing the effectiveness of interpersonal communication (IPC) approaches in child survival programmes suggests that the advantage of IPC approaches, which can occur in multiple settings, is that they can tailor information to a client’s needs and be simulated through many different channels, «including media campaigns or other forms of technology such as the delivery of personalised SMS [text messaging].» A review of an article on the effect of training heads of household on malaria and anaemia prevention indicates that training on the proper use of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLITN) can be effective in reducing malaria. [Feb 2013] |
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10. Demand Generation for the 13 Life-saving Commodities: A Synthesis of the Evidence – UN Commission on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children Recommendation 7: Demand and Utilization
by Joanna Skinner, Megan Avila, Arzum Ciloglu, Luis Ortiz Echevarria, and Moremi Oladeinde |
| This literature review analyses demand creation for the 13 under-utilised life-saving commodities for periods during pregnancy, childbirth, and early childhood that have been identified by the United Nations (UN) Commission on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children. Using the social ecological framework to guide the evidence synthesis, the review identifies facilitating factors and barriers at the individual, community, and society levels that influence the demand and uptake of life-saving commodities. [Oct 2013] |
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| 11. Engaging Families for Healthy Pregnancies |
| This desk review examines the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours related to pregnancies amongst women in developing countries in 3 high-risk situations: advanced maternal age (AMA); high parity, or HP (having had 5 or more live births); and rapid repeat pregnancies within 6 months of an abortion or miscarriage. Healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy (HTSP) emphasises the role of spacing between pregnancies and «helps prevent adverse maternal, perinatal and neonatal health outcomes. Behavioural drivers that emerged shared some similarities but differed by country context. Key drivers included: desire for a son; family and spousal pressure to have a large family or a woman’s own desire for a large family; death of a child; desire to have children following remarriage; contraceptive failure; religious or cultural prohibitions on use of contraception; lack of availability of long-acting methods; d! iscontinuation of contraception; or simply that the pregnancy was «by mistake». [Mar 2014] |
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| 12. Demand Generation Implementation Kit for Underutilized Commodities in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health |
| The «I-Kit» is a step-by-step guide to developing communication strategies to increase demand for the 13 under-utilised commodities identified by the UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities (see #8, above). The majority of the I-Kit is a step-by-step guide for developing demand generation strategies: use of SBCC and social marketing techniques to increase access to and demand for health products, services, and behaviours among intended audiences. |
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| 13. Scaling Up Child Survival Programs with Mass Media and Technology |
| This research brief suggests that, for example, because social media and mobile technologies can be personalised and offered over time, they are adaptable to the possibilities of strategic communication, such as those used in social marketing including audience segmentation, staged behaviour change, and branding. In support of this claim, the brief includes a summary of a social marketing research report on a campaign to increase the use of oral rehydration salts for child survival. Mass media and interpersonal communications that are culture- and gender-adapted are mentioned here as delivery routes. |
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| 14. The Value of Holistic and Integrated SBCC Approaches in Child Survival |
| This brief examines the article: «Effectiveness of Kenya’s Community Health Strategy in delivering community-based maternal and newborn health care [MCH]» Wangalwa, G., et al. (2012). Pan Afr Med J, 13(Suppl 1):12. As part of this intervention, community health workers (CHWs) provided services to 20 households each, visiting with pregnant women to provide education, assist in birth plans, screen for danger signs, and advise on care of newborn, etc. «A significant increase was seen in essential maternal and neonatal care practices of four ANC [antenatal care] visits, deliveries by skilled birth attendants, uptake of SP [sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine] for IPTp [intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy] for malaria in pregnancy, exclusive breastfeeding, and knowledge of HIV. However, an increase in postnatal check-up and ITN [insecticide treated nets] ownership was not significant.» [Jan 2012] |
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| 15. Population-Level Social and Behaviour Change Evidence Review for Child Survival in Africa |
In January 2013, two meetings, a consultation on population-level social and behaviour change (SBC) evidence review and «African Leadership for Child Survival: A Promise Renewed», led to a consensus to «accelerate child survival efforts. This decision was endorsed by more than 120 delegations from Ministries of Health across the continent…» The next stops for SBC in Africa to advance the goal of child survival include: disseminating the outputs from the evidence review meetings and supporting sustained advocacy on SBC; developing a package of tools to strengthen the systems approach for SBC; establishing SBC technical assistance fund/facility; identifying and recommending key, affordable impact indicators; and promoting the role of regional university/practitioner networks in supporting dissemination, advocacy, and integration of evidence in SBC.
- For more on children and development issues, see these sections of The CI website:
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| Also, if you wish to receive the DB Click: Children, send an email to children@comminit.com requesting to «Subscribe: Children». Thank you. |
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| Also, if you wish to receive the DB Click: Health Communication, send an email to health@comminit.comrequesting to «Subscribe: HealthComm». Thank you. |
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| This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries. |
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| The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership – Partners: ANDI, BBC Media Action, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Breakthrough, Calandria, Citurna TV, DFID, Eldis, FAO, Fundación Imaginario, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo, Heartlines, Iberoamericano (FNPI), IFPRI, Inter-American Development Bank, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, Open Society Foundations, Oxfam Novib, PAHO, The Panos Institute, Puntos de Encuentro, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, STEPS International, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, USAID, The Wellcome Trust, World Health Organization (WHO), W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City garth@heartlines.org.za
Executive Director: Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com |
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| The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries. |
| Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Send to drumbeat@comminit.com
The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
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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. AID-OAA-A-12-00058. The contents are the responsibility of The Communication Initiative and the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative, based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. |
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Blog de Octavio Islas 