Social and Behaviour Change Communication Approaches Course

This course forms part of a series of social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) short courses within the University of Witwatersrand's Masters of Public Health programme, which have been developed by the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication and the University of Witwatersrand, School of Public Health.

According to the course developers, social and behaviour change communication has a critical role to play in promoting health and wellbeing, preventing illness, and assisting with health literacy to bring people into the health system appropriately and ensure compliance with treatment measures. Strategies that can be utilised to address some of the social determinants of health include advocacy and social mobilisation. These strategies have been demonstrated to be effective in facilitating the implementation and introduction of health policies like tobacco control. It is important for practitioners to develop an understanding and set of skills in evidence-based advocacy and social mobilisation.

This course seeks to develop the capacity of participants to:

• Describe the evidence-base for different approaches, “methods” or strategies such as: peer education, advocacy, edutainment, social marketing and social mobilisation for enhancing and fostering social and behavior change;
• Discuss the theoretical underpinnings of different approaches;
• Apply the most advantageous mix of approaches for their programming context;
• Select an approach based on the determinants that are underlying the issue; and
• Critique, using evidence, the different approaches including IEC, edutainment, and advocacy.

The short courses are supported by Communication for Change (C-Change), a USAID-funded health and development communication project, and UK Department for International Development (DFID).