LAST UPDATE - March 25, 2020 - new items are marked

Introduction

On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement declaring that the coronavirus met the criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The announcement constituted official recognition of the deadly virus as a danger to all, and the global health community ratcheted up efforts to prevent its spread. On March 11 the WHO declared the virus a pandemic.

Well-established linkages between outcomes in family planning (FP) and other development sectors can be leveraged through integrated social and behavior change (SBC) programs. However, as the evidence from integrated programming accumulates, professionals working on multisectoral SBC integration must strengthen these linkages by disseminating programmatic findings in a systematic and coordinated way; sharing useful tools and instruments; and communicating enablers and barriers to integration in funding, design, implementation, and evaluation.

Although the Zika virus was first discovered over 50 years ago, its risks during pregnancy have only recently been understood. When Zika transmission surfaced in large urban centers of Brazil in late 2015, an international public health emergency response began. Dozens of organizations and country governments leapt into action to provide awareness and prevention information, with little opportunity to coordinate messaging. During the first year of the USAID Zika response in Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID found that over 30 behaviors were being promoted. This large number of behaviors presented a challenge to the potential effectiveness of social and behavior change (SBC) efforts to prevent Zika at the household and community level.