"Celebrity endorsements are often sought to influence public opinion. We ask whether celebrity endorsement per se has an effect beyond the fact that their statements are seen by many, and whether on net their statements actually lead people to change their beliefs. To do so, we conducted a nationwid
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e Twitter experiment in Indonesia with 46 high-profile celebrities and organizations, with a total of 7.8 million followers, who agreed to let us randomly tweet or retweet content promoting immunization from their accounts. Our design exploits the structure of what information is passed on along a retweet chain on Twitter to parse reach versus endorsement effects. Endorsements matter: tweets that users can identify as being originated by a celebrity are far more likely to be liked or retweeted by users than similar tweets seen by the same users but without the celebrities' imprimatur. By contrast, explicitly citing sources in the tweets actually reduces diffusion. By randomizing which celebrities tweeted when, we find suggestive evidence that overall exposure to the campaign may influence beliefs about vaccination and knowledge of immunization-seeking behavior by one's network. Taken together, the findings suggest an important role for celebrity endorsement." (Abstract)
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"This evaluation covers two independent projects implemented by BBC Media Action in Zambia. Tikambe provides information to young people about sexual reproductive health and rights and youth-friendly services via different platforms. Radio Waves supports independent media as a platform for dialogue
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and accountability. The evaluation concludes that the projects are relevant and achieved important results. In the future, the projects would benefit from strengthening their participatory approach in project design, sustainability considerations in the organisational capacity development of media actors, vulnerability profile and outreach (Tikambe) and budget design transparency (Radio Waves)." (Back cover)
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"Background: Interventions to raise community awareness about malaria prevention and treatment have used various approaches with little evidence on their efficacy. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of loudspeaker announcements regarding malaria care and prevention practices among peopl
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e living in the malaria endemic villages of Banmauk Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar.
Methods: Four villages among the most malaria-burdened areas were randomly selected: two villages were assigned as the intervention group, and two as the control. Prior to the peak transmission season of malaria in June 2018, a baseline questionnaire was administered to 270 participants from randomly selected households in the control and intervention villages. The loudspeaker announcements broadcasted health messages on malaria care and prevention practices regularly at 7:00 pm every other day. The same questionnaire was administered at 6-month post intervention to both groups. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and the t-test were utilized to assess differences between and within groups.
Results: Participants across the control and intervention groups showed similar socio-economic characteristics; the baseline knowledge, attitude and practice mean scores were not significantly different between the groups. Six months after the intervention, improvements in scores were observed at p-value?0.001 in both groups, however; the increase was greater among the intervention group. The declining trend of malaria was also noticed during the study period. In addition, more than 75% of people expressed positive opinions of the intervention.
Conclusions: The loudspeaker intervention was found to be feasible and effective, as shown by the significant improvement in scores related to prevention and care-seeking practices for malaria as well as reduced malaria morbidity. Expanding the intervention to a larger population in this endemic region and evaluating its long-term effectiveness are essential in addition to replicating this in other low-resource malaria endemic regions." (Abstract)
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"This review presents evidence about the impact of mass media and digital media on young people’s family planning (FP) attitudes and behaviors. It primarily focuses on the Ouagadougou Partnership countries, but also describes lessons learned from other initiatives implemented more widely in Africa
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and elsewhere." (Executive summary)
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"Exploring Journalism Practice and Perception in Developing Countries is a crucial reference source for the latest scholarly material on the impacts of development journalism on contemporary nations and the media’s responsibility to inform citizens of government and non-government activities. High
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lighting a range of pertinent topics such as media regulation, freedom of expression, and new media technology, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academics, professionals, policy makers, and students interested in the role of journalist endeavors in developing nations." (Publisher description)
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"This study examines the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in shaping health reporting in Tanzania. Drawing on in-depth interviews with representatives from NGOs cited in HIV/AIDS-related stories published in the Tanzanian newspapers, the Daily News and The Guardian, the analysis focuses
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on financial incentives and resources committed by NGOs to foster collaborative relationships with journalists. Findings reveal that media training opportunities, seminars and “sitting fees” are used to gain and keep journalists’ attention on health issues, increasing promotional and advocacy-based reporting. Incentive-based reporting raises ethical and normative questions about editorial freedom for both news sources and journalists." (Abstract)
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"The GSMA mHealth programme, under the mNutrition Initiative funded by UK aid (the UK Department for International Development, DFID), has been working with mobile network operators (MNOs) and other mobile and health sector stakeholders to support the launch and scale of mobile health (mHealth) valu
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e-added services (VAS). As of December 2017, these services have cumulatively delivered lifesaving maternal and newborn child health (MNCH) and nutrition information to over 1.59 million women and their families across eight Sub-Saharan African markets: Malawi, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda and Mozambique (Figure 1). Key findings: Adopting a HCD approach to product development and optimisation led to increased user engagement; mHealth service users demonstrated improved nutrition behaviours over non-users across all implementing markets; mHealth services resulted in an average improvement of 12 percentage points in overall nutrition knowledge among users across all eight markets; Mobile information services improve knowledge, even when existing knowledge around certain nutrition topics is reasonably high; Mobile information services have a stronger impact with poorly understood concepts; Repetition of messages about key health practices reinforces the behaviour; Forty-two per cent of mNutrition service users report sharing the information they learn with their family, friends and communities [...]" (Executive summary)
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"Since 2013, BBC Media Action has been working closely with Unicef to support polio eradication. Through mass media programming – radio magazine shows and drama, and radio and TV public service announcements (PSAs) – it has sought to break down barriers to immunising against polio and other chil
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dhood vaccines among vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia to increase demand for and uptake of them. This briefing synthesises findings from research conducted in the three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia - with a focus on Afghanistan. Research findings suggested that BBC Media Action’s programming provided listeners with accurate, trusted and clear information against misinformation and harmful rumours, increased knowledge on the requirement of multiple doses of vaccines and vaccination schedules, prompted discussion and dialogue in communities, garnered trust and confidence among caregivers through the use of doctors and religious leaders and encouraged parents to vaccinate their children by dispelling misconceptions about vaccinations." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction)
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"Media campaigns can potentially reach a large audience at relatively low cost but, to our knowledge, no randomised controlled trials have assessed their effect on a health outcome in a low-income country. We aimed to assess the effect of a radio campaign addressing family behaviours on all-cause po
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st-neonatal under-5 child mortality in rural Burkina Faso [...] A comprehensive radio campaign had no detectable effect on child mortality. Substantial decreases in child mortality were observed in both groups over the intervention period, reducing our ability to detect an effect. This, nevertheless, represents the first randomised controlled trial to show that mass media alone can change healthseeking behaviours." (Summary)
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"Suicide prevention media campaigns are gaining traction as a means of combatting suicide. The current review set out to synthesize information about the effectiveness of these campaigns. We searched four electronic databases for studies that provided evidence on the effectiveness of media campaigns
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. We focused on studies that described an evaluation of the effectiveness of an entire campaign or a public service announcement explicitly aimed at suicide prevention. We identified 20 studies of varying quality. Studies that looked at whether campaign exposure leads to improved knowledge and awareness of suicide found support for this. Most studies that considered whether campaign materials can achieve improvements in attitudes toward suicide also found this to be the case, although there were some exceptions. Some studies found that media campaigns could boost help-seeking, whereas others suggested that they made no difference or only had an impact when particular sources of help or particular types of help-seeking were considered. Relatively few studies had sufficient statistical power to examine whether media campaigns had an impact on the ultimate behavioral outcome of suicides, but those that did demonstrated significant reductions. Our review indicates that media campaigns should be considered in the suite of interventions that might be used to prevent suicide. Evidence for their effectiveness is still amassing, but there are strong suggestions that they can achieve positive results in terms of certain suicide-related outcomes. Care should be taken to ensure that campaign developers get the messaging of campaigns right, and further work is needed to determine which messages work and which ones do not, and how effective messages should be disseminated. There is an onus on those developing and delivering campaigns to evaluate them carefully and to share the findings with others. There is a need for evaluations that employ rigorous designs assessing the most pertinent outcomes. These evaluations should explore the nature of given campaigns in detail – in particular the messaging contained within them – in order to tease out which messages work well and which do not. They should also take into account the reach of the campaign, in order to determine whether it would be reasonable to expect that they might have their desired effect." (Abstract)
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"Este libro relata la gestión de la campaña de lucha contra la desnutrición infantil realizada por el Grupo RPP y difundida de forma ininterrumpida a traves de su principal emisora radial, desde el 2006 hasta el 2010. Dicha experiencia representó una apuesta empresarial donde se evidenció que l
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as campañas sociales bien estructuradas, que reciben el compromiso de alta dirección de la institución y logran el involucramiento de los grupos de interés, pueden llegar a ser una eficiente estrategia de responsabilidad social a mediano plazo." (Editorial)
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"Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing is the first volume in the field to address the role that theatre, drama and performance have in relation to promoting, developing and sustaining health and wellbeing in diverse communities. Challenging concepts and understanding of health, wellbeing
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and illness, it offers insight into different approaches to major health issues through applied performance. With a strong emphasis on the artistry involved in performance-based health responses, situated within a history of the field of practice, the volume is divided into two sections: Part One examines some of the key questions around research and practice in applied performance in health and wellbeing, specifically addressing the different regional challenges that dominate the provision of health care and influence wellbeing: how the aging population of the global north creates pressure on lifetime healthcare provision, while the global south is dominated by a higher birth rate and a larger population under 15 years old. Part Two comprises case studies and interviews from international practitioners that reflect the diversity of practices across the world and in particular differences between work in the northern and southern hemispheres. These case studies include a sanitation project in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand in the 1980s, and the sanitation and rural development projects initiated by the traveling theatre troupes of a number of University theatre departments in Africa – Makerere in Kampala, Uganda; Botswana; Lesotho and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – which began in the 1960s. It considers the emergence of Theatre for Development's use as a health approach, considering the work of Laedza Batanani and the influences of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed." (Publisher description)
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"The article outlines some of the ways in which an understanding of policymaker psychology and factors such as group dynamics and political context are reflected in the grey literature, and the implications of this for understanding the role of storytelling in political advocacy. It highlights pract
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ical advice about storytelling that emerges from the literature, and presents four case studies illustrating aspects of storytelling in action. It concludes by identifying the implications for scientists and other advocates of“evidence informed policymaking”, practitioners and policymakers." (Abstract)
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"Drawing on BBC Media Action’s work on maternal and child health with governmental and non-governmental partners in Bangladesh, India and Ethiopia, this paper discusses: the value of these partnerships for successful health communication; the part played by media and communication in wider health
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interventions; ways to include those without access to mass media; how to spark discussions that underpin journeys of change; the best techniques for working together to produce long-lasting results. It concludes that by working together from the outset, media organisations and others working to improve people’s health can help support each other to ensure that health communication reaches its full potential to change lives." (BBC Media Action website)
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"Ebonyi State of Nigeria is among the states where the incidence of Lassa fever has become endemic; and has consequently led to the death of many people including health practitioners in the state. To mobilize the people against the disease, government and stakeholders in the health sector resorted
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to health literacy campaigns through Ebonyi Broadcasting Corporation (EBBC). The most popular and dramatic of these campaigns is the one that advocates for total stoppage in the consumption of all species of rats. It is titled: bu gunu be unu na ahu? Meaning what are you roasting. As rat consumption is age long habits of the majority of the Ebonyi people, particularly, those in the rural areas, it becomes incumbent that the effectiveness of the campaign notwithstanding its popularity should be empirically evaluated. Survey research method was adopted for the investigation. Consequently, 380 copies of structured questionnaire were administered on respondents systematically drawn from three rural communities, one each from three senatorial zones of the state. Using mean computation for the test of hypotheses, the study among others found that though the campaign created awareness of the disease among the people, majority of them do not agree that all rats are potential vectors of Lassa fever virus, and that, the people.s knowledge and belief about the disease is significantly independent of their exposure to the EBBC campaign. Consequently, the study among others recommended that the framing of such radical health campaign message should be reflective of the people.s culture, and that the campaign should highlight the reason(s) why all rats are considered to be potential vectors of Lassa fever virus." (Abstract)
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"Through a careful review of the evidence, this briefing offers a spirited case for why donors, practitioners and developing country governments need to pay more attention to the role of communication in tackling global health. The briefing finds that: Communication has been central to public health
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developments from Ebola to polio and from HIV to child survival. While health policy officials recognise the importance of health communication, it often remains poorly funded, under-utilised and badly planned in public health programmes. Even when it does prioritise communication, public health programming often fails to reflect best practice around the role of social and behaviour change communications (SBCC). Progress has been stymied by the complexity of social and behaviour change communication, debates around “what counts” as evidence, and the learning and capacity-strengthening gaps within the health communication field. Donors should ensure that their staff are familiar with the health communication evidence base and lessons learned from past programmes, so that they are equipped to plan and evaluate proposals for new communication interventions effectively." (BBC Media Action website)
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"Organizations strive to persuade the public to change beliefs or behavior through expensive media campaigns. Designers painstakingly craft resonant and culturally sensitive messaging that will motivate people to buy a product or take active steps to improve their health. But once these campaigns le
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ave the controlled environments of focus groups and advertising agencies, the public interprets and distorts the campaigns in ways their designers never intended or dreamed. In 'Best Laid Plans', Terence E. McDonnell argues that these well-designed campaigns are undergoing “cultural entropy”: the process through which the intended meanings and uses of cultural objects fracture into alternative meanings, new practices, failed interactions, and blatant disregard. Using AIDS media campaigns in Accra, Ghana, as its central case study, the book walks readers through best-practice, evidence-based media campaigns that fall totally flat. Female condoms are turned into bracelets, AIDS posters become home decorations, red ribbons fade into pink under the sun—to name a few failures. These damaging cultural misfires are not random. Rather, McDonnell makes the case that these disruptions are patterned, widespread, and inevitable—indicative of a broader process of cultural entropy." (Back cover)
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"This practice briefing sets out what BBC Media Action learned in delivering and supporting health communication in response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014–15. It has a particular focus on Sierra Leone as this was the hub of the organisation’s response. The paper aims to contribute t
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o a body of knowledge about how to best harness and deploy media and communication in public health emergencies. It also underscores the need for the global community to plan and invest in communication long before any crises take hold, to ensure that communication plays a central role in reducing the impact of future crisis events. The paper sets out the specific communication challenge posed by Ebola and why it was so difficult to get to grips with this in the early months of the outbreak. It then documents when the health communication response became more useful and explores what that tells us about effective media and communication. Finally, it offers recommendations to ensure that media and communication are used to their full potential during other disease outbreaks or humanitarian crises." (BBC Media Action website)
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"This book advances new understandings of how technologies have been harnessed to improve the health of populations; whether the technologies really empower those who use information by providing them with a choice of information; how they shape health policy discourses; how the health information r
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elates to traditional belief systems and local philosophies; the implications for health communicators; how certain forms of silence are produced when media articulates and problematizes only a few health issues and sidelines others; and much more." (Publisher description)
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"Community video is a powerful approach to improving nutrition practices, even in areas beset by drought, conflict, and food shortages. When community members create and share videos that promote optimal nutrition and hygiene behaviors, friends and neighbors pay attention. This report details the po
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sitive impact of a pilot community video project for better maternal, infant, and young child feeding in Niger and offers important lessons learned." (Back cover)
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