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Community engagement is a proven social and behavior change (SBC) strategy that has helped people around the world identify and address pressing health issues.[1] According to UNICEF, community engagement focuses on collective or group participation. It empowers communities and their social networks to reflect on and address a range of behaviors, issues and decisions that affect their lives and to become proactively involved in their community's development. Community engagement is a strategy that raises awareness and strengthens the community's capacity to effect change.
Global health has historically been dominated by United Nations agencies and bilateral organizations, but new and important partnerships with the private sector have emerged since the 1990s. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 30 years ago, 70 percent of resource flows from the United States to the developing world came in the form of Official Development Assistance.
“Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a process, one that requires a deep understanding of people. It starts with observations and then a rigorous attempt to use those observations to determine the true underlying issues and needs, a process that might be called "Problem Defining" (as opposed to problem solving). Then, these needs and issues are addressed through an iterative, evidence-based procedure of observation, ideation, prototyping, and testing, with each cycle of the iteration going deeper and deeper into the solution space. The result is a form of incremental innovation, optimizing the solution through a hill-climbing process” [1]
The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) was launched in February 2014 to advance a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats, to bring together nations from all over the world to make new, concrete commitments, and to elevate global health security as a national leaders-level priority.
Male engagement in family planning (FP) improves reproductive health and gender outcomes.* In many settings, men play a dominant role in decisions such as family size and the use of contraceptives. Men's critical role in FP decisions makes it important to include them in FP programming. Programs engaging men can enhance spousal communication, improve gender-equitable attitudes, and increase FP use.**
HIV-related stigma is a key barrier to testing and treatment. In October 2017, UNAIDS released a report stating that people living with HIV who experience high levels of HIV-related stigma are more than twice as likely to delay enrolment into care than people who do not perceive HIV-related stigma. Stigma plays a role in losses throughout the treatment continuum and remains a key barrier to improving HIV outcomes.
Service providers, whether facility or community based, are a key link between communities and health systems. A provider’s direct interactions with clients means they play a crucial role as facilitator and potential barrier to their clients adopting healthy behaviors. A service provider’s opinions and biases, attitudes and behaviors, capacity and skills, and working conditions can influence their ability or motivation to deliver quality services. Such barriers may be outcomes of individual, interpersonal, organizational, and institutional factors.
Segmentation is the process of dividing a large audience into smaller groups of people - or segments - who have similar needs, values or characteristics. It recognizes that different groups will respond differently to social and behavior change (SBC) messages and interventions. Segmenting audiences enables a program to focus on those audience members who are most critical to reach and also to design the most effective and efficient strategy for helping each audience adopt new behaviors.
Use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) is one of the main interventions to prevent malaria, and high ITN use rates are a central goal of malaria programs. The four standard indicators to assess outcomes have assessed the percentage of: 1) households owing at least 1 ITN, 2) population with access to an ITN within their household, 3) households owing at least 1 ITN for every 2 people, and 4) population that used an ITN the previous night.
[UPDATED June 13, 2019] In a study reported on this date in The Lancet, the results of the ECHO (Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) Trial Consortium)study which was designed to determine the relationship between some hormonal contraceptive methods and HIV reported that there is no significant difference in HIV rates between those women who used hormonal contraception and those who did not.
Communication plays a critical role in providing women and their partners with the information needed to inform contraceptive method selection. Recently, framing that information (Strategic Communication Framework for Hormonal Contraceptive Methods and Potential HIV-Related Risks) in a clear, consistent, and complete manner has become challenging as ambiguity around risks associated with use of long-acting progestogen-only injectables remains.
