As part of a broader evidence summit, USAID and UNICEF convened a literature review of effective means to empower communities to achieve behavioral and social changes to accelerate reductions in under-5 mortality and optimize early child development. The authors conducted a systematic review of the effectiveness of community mobilization and participation that led to behavioral change and one or more of the following: child health, survival, and development. The level and nature of community engagement was categorized using two internationally recognized models and only studies where the methods of community participation could be categorized as collaborative or shared leadership were eligible for analysis. The authors identified 34 documents from 18 countries that met the eligibility criteria. Studies with shared leadership typically used a comprehensive community action cycle, whereas studies characterized as collaborative showed clear emphasis on collective action but did not undergo an initial process of community dialogue. The review concluded that programs working collaboratively or achieving shared leadership with a community can lead to behavior change and cost-effective sustained transformation to improve critical health behaviors and reduce poor health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries. Overall, community engagement is an understudied component of improving child outcomes.
The risk perception attitude framework can serve as a theoretically sound audience segmentation technique that can be used to determine whether messages should augment perceptions of risk, beliefs about personal efficacy, or both.
The risk perception attitude (RPA) framework posits that efficacy beliefs moderate the relationship between risk perception and health outcomes. To extend the purview of the theory, this central hypothesis was tested in the context of HIV/AIDS-prevention behaviors. Data (N = 890) were collected from 8 districts in Malawi in southern Africa as part of a baseline research effort to obtain benchmark measures on key behavior-change indicators. Results pertaining to 2 behaviors, use of condoms and remaining monogamous, are reported in this study. Relationships between risk perception and behavioral intentions were not significant, but those between efficacy beliefs and behavioral intentions were. Furthermore, efficacy beliefs were found to moderate the relationship between risk perception and intentions to remain monogamous, but not between risk perceptions and intentions to use condoms. The model was able to explain approximately 40% of the variance in intentions to use condoms, and 19% of the variance in intentions to remain monogamous. Implications for health campaigns, particularly the need to strengthen efficacy beliefs and the need to be careful in enhancing risk perceptions without simultaneously strengthening efficacy beliefs, are also discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.