SBCC Research Agenda - for review and comment please

Hi and best wishes.

At the recent What Works? SBCC Summit in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, we convened a group of academics in attendance to discuss and seek to agree a possible research agenda for this field of work. That research agenda and the list of people involved in its development follow below. We would very much welcome your review and critique of this draft research agenda. With which parts do you agree? What would you omit? What would you add? To contribute you can reply by email to this note or click “Please click to review, comment …” above and post in the comments block at the bottom of this thread online.

Thank you very much for engaging as we all seek to further development research in relation to social change, behaviour change, communication for development and media development. We are of course most happy to answer any questions that may have.

Ben (LSHTM) and Gillian (Harvard)

RESEARCH AGENDA MEETING
SBCC Conference, Bali (Indonesia)
Friday, April the 20th

Introduction: A group of academics and researchers met at the 2018 SBCC  conference in Bali, to discuss possible research trajectories spurring out of the conference. The meeting lasted for about 1 hour. In this meeting participants first reflected individually, writing their ideas on post it notes, and then discussed these ideas in the group, identifying together common themes. In this document, we report our reflections, organised in the themes we identified together. Each theme has both a key research question, emerged in the discussion, and a list of subthemes that include all po: st-it notes.Key research themes emerged from the research agenda meeting.

1.  EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERVENTIONS

1.1 Key research question - In a world that favours short-term programming and evaluation, how do we evaluate, collate, and share effective change practices?

1.2 Subthemes

Measurement and evaluation

•    How can we measure change spurring out of community-based dialogue interventions?
•    What tools and methods exist to measure SBCC programmes (particularly when multi-sectoral)
•    Should “gold standard” research methods (like RCTs) be used in SBCC to serve its unique attributes?
•    How to feasibly get more rigour into existing monitoring and evaluations routines?
•    How can we use outcome harvesting in evaluating SBCC interventions?
•    How can me measure our impact through SBCC against the SDGs?
•    How can we measure behavioural change at the organizational and institutional level?
•    How do we measure advocacy outcomes?
•    When is intention to change good enough evidence?
•    How can we do better data mining for programme impact?
•    What does good triangulation of information look like?
•    How can we achieve and measure long-term behaviour change?

Added value of SBCC interventions

•    What is the comparative effectiveness of SBC interventions?
•    How can SBCC methods be used effectively to address environmental issues? Why are they not being used more widely in this way?

Integrated approaches

•    What impact can SBC components have on behavioural outcomes when they become part of integrated multi-health interventions?

Going to scale

•    Should we design for scale?
•    What do community-led SBCC interventions to scale look like?

2. INNOVATIONS

2.1 Key research question: In a world fascinated with seeking and implementing innovations (often before we know to what extent current practices work), what can help strike the right balance of traditional and innovatory?

2.2 Subthemes

Internet and social media

•    How can digital interventions accelerate social norms change?
•    What is the most effective balance between online and offline interventions for SBCC?

Human Centred Design

•    What methods can be used to evaluate human centred design approaches and what challenges do they present?
•    How can human centred design approaches help achieve better service delivery?

Participatory practices

•    How can participants (beneficiaries) be actively participating in designing and implementing SBCC evaluations?

3. ETHICS OF INTERVENTIONS

3.1 Key research question - In a world where aims of SBC are often donor-driven, what authorities do practitioners have to try and influence people’s practices?

3.2 Subtheme

Responsibility and participation

•    Who should participate in design and implementation of SBCC interventions?
•    How do we address potential power differentials across participants communities?

4. DONORS, ORGANISATIONS AND STRUCTURES

4.1 Key research question - How can donors, practitioners, and participants engage in transformative discussions on funding mechanisms, outcome identification, and intervention design?

4.2 Subthemes

Healthcare system

•    What are the SBC approaches (beyond trainings) that are being tried and are successful with health care providers?

Funding

•    What is the impact of short-term funding mechanisms?

5. COST ANALYSIS

5.1 Key research question - What methods can be used to understand value for money of effective SBCC interventions?

5.2 Subtheme

Cost-effectiveness

•    How to estimate costs of various approaches, strategies, interventions?
•    What are good mechanisms of cost-effectiveness for entertainment education?
•    What is the value for money of HCD approaches to SBCC vs more traditional strategies?

6. CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF WHAT INFLUENCES PEOPLE'S PRACTICES

6.1 Key research questions - Is it possible to create a simple model of complicated change to help practitioners achieve greater effectiveness in the field?

6.2 Subthemes

Integrated and holistic approaches

•    What is the contribution of social norms change to social movements?
•    What is the potential of norms interventions to affect a range of practices with a single intervention?
•    How do we bring together what we know about social change, social norms, behavioural economics and human-centred design?
•    How can we integrate different approaches for effective social and behavioural change?

Emotions

•    What is the role of emotions in motivating social and behavioural change?

Transferability and context

•    How does the social and physical context affect determinants of behaviour and effectiveness of interventions?

PARTICIPANTS: Alex Cranberg, Ben Cislaghi (convenor), Bryan Shaw, Cari Jo Clark, David Chiriboga, Denise Ferris, Emily Harrise, Gillian SteelFisher (convenor), Katie Batholomew, Lilly Shofield, Lucy Mitchell, Luke Freeman, Maya Hasan, Robert Dreibelbis, Sanyukta Mathur, Susan Gigli and Tom Jacobson.