Behaviour Change Strategies Project

Background

The Department of Health and Family Welfare, of Jharkhand, Orissa, MP and UP and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India organized a State consultative workshop with technical support of HLFPPT and USAID. The workshop besides sharing experiences of different stakeholders aimed at identifying health communication priorities, along with the available options and examining strategic directions for health communications initiative in light of these options. The participants included key government representatives, international agencies and local non-governmental organizations involved in health initiatives.

The state consultative workshop identified major issues as those related to RCH, related to communicable and seasonal diseases and system related. In light of these the primary target audience will be; mother/parents having children’s of age group of 0-2 years who need to be educated on immunization against six preventable diseases in children; adolescents from 10-19years both male and female group who need to be educated on health issues pertaining to family life education; women in reproductive age group of 20-35 who need to come out from social and family pressure and more importantly beliefs and customs this requires a balanced male female participation; marginal laborers and the working group for prevention against STI/AIDS; husbands of women of reproductive ages especially who have wives aged 15 to 34 years and the service providers. These will cover most of the issues such as IMR, MMR, CPR, immunization, post natal care, infant care etc. Other issues such as male involvement, awareness amongst adolescents etc will also get addressed directly or indirectly. There are some other issues like socio cultural constrains, economic and religious characteristics which will be addressed through an integrated model of communication.