Designing the Future of Nutrition Social and Behavior Change Communication: How to Achieve Impact at Scale

"The report authors are driven by the certainty that collective efforts to reach national and global nutrition targets will fall short unless nutrition stakeholders implement more effective, at-scale, Nutrition SBCC interventions."

This report and complementary video, present a five-point strategic agenda for nutrition Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) to help prompt nutrition stakeholders to maximise SBCC's contribution in reaching global nutrition targets. According to the report, research demonstrates that unhealthy behaviours are risk factors for global mortality and illness, and that there is considerable evidence for the effectiveness of SBCC interventions to improve nutrition behaviours. However, global conversations have not fully recognised the central role of SBCC. This report was produced to provoke discussion and catalyse change among existing nutrition and SBCC institutions, decision-makers, practitioners, and influencers.

The strategic agenda was developed through collaboration between Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The publication’s production included a review of current evidence around proven and promising SBCC approaches from multiple sectors, a working meeting with thought leaders and experts to identify key principles of effective at-scale SBCC, and a broader stakeholder conference called ‘Designing the Future of Nutrition Social and Behavior Change Communication: How to Achieve Impact at Scale’.

Following an overview describing the objective of the report, Section II presents the following five points that comprise the Strategic Agenda for Nutrition SBCC, elaborating on each point. These are briefly summarised below:

• Promote scale-focused nutrition SBCC: This includes ensuring SBCC as an integral component of nutrition interventions, investing in pilots with a clear potential for scale, and implementing approaches that enable short-term behaviour change AND the longer-term structural changes needed for sustainability.
• Drive excellence in design and implementation: Suggestions include "broadening formative research to include observational methods and methods that explore unconscious motivations and cognitive biases," focusing on a limited number of behaviours, and using consumer-centered approaches that "cut through crowded information environments to connect with users."
• Engage world-class people and partners: There is a need to draw on the strengths of both the public and private sector, build teams of multi-disciplinary members, and enlist the services of creative, media, and technology specialists to craft compelling interventions.
• Build on the existing evidence base for SBCC's impact on nutrition: This includes using standard indicators to measure social change, behaviour change, and outcomes, aligning reporting requirements to include common aspects, and identifying key success factors for replicating or scaling-up intervention.
• Persuade decision-makers that SBCC is critical for tackling malnutrition: Recommendations include allocating time and resources to secure SBCC as a top priority for global nutrition, creating compelling and engaging tools that highlight the strong evidence for nutrition SBCC, and recruiting SBCC champions within existing nutrition organisations and platforms.

Section III describes the key findings from the consultative process that informed the Strategic Agenda. As stated in the report, “there is extensive evidence for the positive impact of SBCC on improving infant feeding practices, nutritional status, and other health behaviors. One-on-one or small group communication is the approach most consistently and effectively used, with the most published evidence supporting it." There is also evidence that SBCC interventions are more effective when they are based on theoretical approaches, comprise mutually reinforcing approaches, and include a wide variety of delivery strategies, from mass media to interpersonal communication.

Section IV summarises the proceedings of the two-day conference that brought together a broad group of nutrition and SBCC stakeholders, and provides real-world examples of effective at-scale SBCC from multiple sectors. The publication concludes that that this consultative process "affirms the need for at-scale action, strives for excellence in intervention design and implementation, asserts the need to build an evidence base of interventions, recommends engaging world-class partners, and asserts the need to persuade decision-makers of the critical importance of SBCC for addressing malnutrition."

Click here to watch the video which lays out the five-point strategic agenda.