Evidence Review on Social and Behavior Change for Child Survival in Africa

HC3 collaborates with USAID and UNICEF to collect evidence that supports social and behavioral change communication (SBCC) approaches to improve child survival. The project identifies, collects, and assesses evidence-based programs and interventions related to child survival and development, making these examples available to the relief and development community as open source materials through an electronic platform. HC3 works with its partners and organizations around the globe to make the case that effective and strategic SBCC can save the lives of children. This is accomplished through the collection and assessment of existing evidence and by strengthening the capacity of organizations and individuals in developing countries to conduct their own child survival research and evaluation. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of health communication programs in improving the use of bed nets and thereby saving children's lives, particularly in the area of malaria. HC3 is working with partners to collect evidence on SBCC through its participation in meetings such as the African Leadership for Child Survival meeting and the Child Survival Evidence Summit. These events mark the beginning of the process of collecting evidence to convince policymakers and program managers about the value of social and behavior change programs to encourage them to incorporate SBCC programming into their country plans. HC3 aims to strengthen developing country capacity to implement state-of-the-art health communication programs, with the ultimate goal of improving child survival and health outcomes. HC3 supports collaborative learning, exchange, and capacity strengthening through activities such as the Health COMPass and the MarketPlace. The Health COMpass is an interactive collection of the best SBCC resources and program examples, offering guided searching to learn SBCC and allowing users to post their own materials. The MarketPlace is a virtual and face-to-face platform for the SBCC community to connect, learn, share, and find expertise, resources, and tools. HC3 is led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (JHU∙CCP) in collaboration with Management Sciences for Health, NetHope, Population Services International, Ogilvy PR, Forum One, and Internews. HC3's ultimate goal is to ensure that every country has a community of professionals with the capacity and commitment to create, coordinate, and evaluate state-of-the-art health communication programs. The project also aims to make communication a recognized and used collaborative catalyst for development, and to enable indigenous partners to use proven technologies, tools, and collaborative forums to access, create, and exchange knowledge and strengthen their capacity to serve their clients.