Scaling Up Child Survival Programs with Mass Media and Technology

This research brief from the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) discusses how mass media and information and communication technology (ICT) can "achieve society-wide changes in social and behavioral drivers of health because they reach millions of people quickly with high quality information.... These approaches include strategic communication, mass media, social marketing, social media, and texting/SMS."

The 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. Social marketing can promote behaviour that may, for example, enhance well-being, or publicise a service, in order to increase the uptake of that service, delivered through pharmacies or health service providers. Mass media and interpersonal communications that are culture- and gender-adapted are delivery routes for social marketing.

Mass media can offer education-entertainment (E-E) on a large scale, using media channels that reach specific audiences. "It is also worth noting that campaigns with a PR [public relations] or advocacy component can create a facilitating environment through policy change or enforcement, which increases the likelihood of behavior change. Also, there are many opportunities for public/private partnerships, such as partnering with large mobile service providers".

Social media, including social networking, blogs, content communities, and virtual worlds, may be underutilised and can offer tracking that might be valuable in monitoring and evaluation. Text/SMS is being utilised and evaluated as a health behaviour change message delivery method. Programmes of SMS delivery of health information have shown evidence to support texting as an effective tool for behaviour change. 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. It closes with a statement on the need for rigorous evaluation of programmes using the methods above for health behaviour change.

HC3 is based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs in partnership with Management Sciences for Health, NetHope, Population Services International, Ogilvy PR, and Internews and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).