Strategic Health Communication

Belay Ali(MPH)

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 Objectives
• Define advocacy
• Community/social Mobilization and
conversation
• Social Marketing for health development

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 Strategic Health Communication

 Strategic Health Communication is a

PROCESS
 It has five Steps
1. Inquire/Analysis
2. Design your strategy
3. Create and test
4. Mobilize and monitor
5. Evaluate and evolve

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 1-Inquare/analysis stage

Analysis stage is divided in three parts

•Situational analysis
•Program Analysis/Needs Assessment
•Audience/Behavioral Analysis

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 Basic Strategic Questions

• What do we want to happen? Shared Vision

• What is happening now?
• What is likely to happen?
• Why are there differences?
• What do we need to change?
• How do we nurture change?
Current situation
Current destination
Key Constraints
Strategic objectives
Strategy or key moves

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 2- Design your strategy

• Communication objectives
• Audience segmentation
• Program approaches
• Channel recommendations
• Work plan and monitoring & evaluation plan
• Align program design to the analysis and
research

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 3. Create &Test

• Develop program’s communication products

– Choose your creative team
– Plan design workshop
• Combine art and science
– Create draft concepts and materials
• Test ideas
– Share results with creative team
– Revise based on feedback
– Retest
– Produce the final materials
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 4. Mobilize& Monitor
• Ensure all partners understand their role
• Conduct needed trainings for field workers,
health personnel and other project
implementers
• Monitor your monitoring activities
• Make mid-course corrections as needed
• Prepare for further evaluation activities

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 5. Evaluate & Evolve

• Measure outcomes and assess impact through

surveys and other evaluation techniques
• Disseminate results
• Look to the future
– What are some future opportunities?
– How to apply lessons learned?
– Where is follow-up needed?
– How can results be scaled up?
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 Theory, Participation and Capacity
Strengthening

Throughout the Process:

• Ensure theory guides each step
• Ensure participation--engage multiple
stakeholders at all levels
• Consider ways to build capacity at the
institutional and community level

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 Advocacy

 What is Advocacy?

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 Advocacy: Definition
• Advocacy is “A set of targeted actions in support of a
cause or an issue, because one wants to build support
for that cause or issue, influence others to support it; or
try to influence or change legislation that affects it.”

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 Definition…
• Advocacy ….‘The process of influencing key
decision-makers and opinion-formers
(individuals and organizations) for changes to
policies and practices that will work in poor
people’s favor.’

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 Definition…..
• It is strategic and targets well-designed activities to key
stakeholders and decision makers.

• It always directed at influencing policy, laws,

regulations, programmes or decisions on funding made
at the upper-most levels of public or private sector
institutions.
CEDPA

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 Advocacy …

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 Level of advocacy

• Advocacy takes place at all levels of decision-

making.
• Advocacy is needed at all levels because
decisions at top levels affect those at lower
levels.
• Actions at lower levels can determine policies
at higher levels.
• Therefore, advocacy is necessary at all levels
for lasting change.
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 Levels…example !

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 Principles of advocacy
• Advocacy is about achieving equity and justice.
• All advocacy must attempt to minimize conflicts
of interest.
• Always tell the truth. Make your word impeccable.
• Know who is and is not on your side
• Follow-up.
• Advocacy is about achieving the best possible
outcomes for all parties concerned.

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 Advocacy planning process
• An advocacy initiative can be divided into
stages, although in practice these overlap.

• Advocacy is a process of action, thus it needs

steps of actions.

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 Advocacy planning …steps

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 Social Mobilization

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 Social Mobilization
 Social mobilization is mobilizing people to
act, redirect or create human and material
resources for the achievement of a social goal.
• Contextually, social mobilization is an
integrative process where stakeholders are
stimulated to become active participants in
social change, using diverse strategies to meet
shared goals.
• People , Taking action , Common good

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 Social mov----
A broad scale movement to engage people's
participation in achieving a specific
development goal through self-reliant
efforts(UNICEF)

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 Basic principles of social mobilization
1. EMPOWERMENT: For Men, Women, Children,
Adolescents, elders, disadvantaged groups
2. SUSTAINABILITY: Not one-off campaign
3. CULTURAL SENSITIVITY and GENDER FAIRNESS
4. INTEGRATION: encourage synergy
5. EQUITY

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 Elements for Social mobilization

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 Aims of social mobilization
• Provide knowledge/awareness
• Change behavior and enable people to act on an
important issue
• Enlist community action
• Disseminate policy
• Mobilize resources to possible to an important issue
• Help people understand their rights
• Bridge the gap between people with and without power
• Support services delivery 

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 Social Marketing

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 Social Marketing
• “The application of commercial marketing
technologies to the analysis, planning,
execution, and evaluation of programs designed
to influence voluntary behavior of target
audiences in order to improve their personal
welfare and that of society” (Andreasen 1995)

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 Principles of social Marketing
• Audience orientation: what our audience currently
knows, believes and does
• Audience segmentation: Making a program more
targeted, resource-efficient to improve effectiveness.
• Influencing behavior: bottom-line of any social
marketing program
• Action: It provoke action
• Competition: behavior contrary to the one you are
promoting should be explored and addressed
• Exchange: An exchange takes place for every decision
• Marketing mix: Commonly known as the Four Ps –
Product, Price, Place, Promotion
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 The four P’s

• Product – What is
being offered
– An idea
– A service
– A behaviour
– A commodity
- solution to a problem

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 The four P’s---

• Price – What the

audience gives up in
exchange
– Time
– Money
– Comfort
• The barriers to adopting
the desired behaviour

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 The four P’s----

• Place – Also referred to

as distribution
– Where tangible products
are purchased
– Where people are in the
right frame of mind to
receive a message
– Where the service is
provided
• Where people will act

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 The four P’s---

• Promotion – The
path used to reach
the target audience
– Messages
– Materials
– Channels
– Activities
• In order to promote
the desired behaviour

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