Evidence-Based Malaria Social and Behavior Change Communication: From Theory to Program Evaluation

This e-learning series provides an overview on how to use data to make social and behavior change communication (SBCC) interventions more robust, with a focus on malaria. This includes strategies to encourage the long-term adoption of behaviors related to malaria, such as sleeping under a net and seeking care for fever for various target audiences: pregnant women, providers, and children under five, for example.  

If you are interested in how to make your malaria prevention SBCC program more robust or improve your ability to measure the outcomes of your program, then take this course, which consists of five modules. 

Module 1: Telling Stories About Behavior: Theory As Narrative is presented by Doug Storey and will introduce participants to some of the basic theories used in SBCC, using examples specific to malaria. 

Module 2: Formative Research for SBCC: Do You Know Your Audience? is presented by Michelle R. Kaufman and will introduce participants to the basics of formative research for informing SBCC programs, using examples specific to malaria. 

Module 3: Pretesting: A Critical Step to Ensuring SBCC Effectiveness is presented by Rupali Limaye and will introduce participants to the critical steps in pretesting SBCC interventions, using examples specific to malaria. 

Module 4: Monitoring Malaria SBCC Interventions is presented by Hannah Koenker and will introduce participants to various approaches and indicators for monitoring malaria SBCC activities. 

Module 5: Evaluating Social and Behavior Change Communication is presented by Marc Boulay and will introduce participants to techniques for evaluating and attributing causality to SBCC interventions, using examples specific to malaria.

Social and Behavior Change 101: An Introduction

This is a skill shot—or short course—for program managers, donor organizations, and family planning/reproductive health (FP/RH) practitioners to learn how social and behavior change (SBC) interventions can guide and amplify the effectiveness of FP/RH. The course is structured around the three steps of the SBC Flow Chart developed by Breakthrough ACTION: (1) Define, (2) Design and Test, and (3) Apply. With clear examples and short exercises, this course illustrates the importance of strategically designing SBC programs for FP/RH, including monitoring and evaluation. Allowing for pauses to complete three short exercises, this course is two hours long.

Monitoring and Evaluating SBC Approaches

This course aims to support Social and Behavior Change (SBC) programs by explaining how programs can develop a robust theory-driven monitoring and evaluation plan that provides evidence that can strengthen implementation and support program evaluation. This course is comprised of three short instructional videos that last between 10-15 minutes. The three videos are accompanied by a How to Brief that students can print for easy reference.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how to build a project theory of change that incorporates SBC theory
  • Learn the types of quantitative indicators that are useful to measure in an SBC program
  • Learn how data can help to tell your story and explain whether the programme reached the desired outcome