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Learn how we use evidence-based behaviour change campaigns to improve and save lives in low-income countries.
Learn about how DMI brings together two different worlds: demonstrable scientific practice and creative storytelling.
Location COVID-19
With the escalating spread of COVID-19, global health and development leaders sounded the alarm on a secondary health crisis in access to reproductive, maternal and child health and nutrition services, specifically in low- and lower-middle income settings. A disruption to essential services such as antenatal care, in-person deliveries, children’s vaccinations and family planning was likely to significantly increase preventable maternal and child deaths.
For Jitazame Afya, meaning ‘Take Care of Yourself’ in Kiswahili, we campaigned to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 by messaging on early childhood development (ECD) and reproductive and child health behaviours through radio and TV in the Lake Zone and Tabora regions of Tanzania.
Tanzania
COVID-19 – encouraging essential treatment-seeking behaviours, early childhood development and reproductive and child health.
8 x 1-minute radio spots and 2 x live action films
Our radio spots were broadcast for four months from May 2021 to August 2021 across seven regional radio stations and one national radio station. We also broadcast audio visual outputs on two national TV stations for two months
Approximately 7.5 million people in the Lake Zone and Tabora regions of Tanzania.
Science
Our campaigns across Tanzania, spanning more than half a decade, have successfully improved outcomes in family planning, nutrition and ECD. Through this, we have built a repository of highly effective radio and television spots on these topics. Given the urgency of this campaign, we selected eight of our most impactful radio, and two most impactful television spots to be re-broadcast.
Stories
DMI drew on a combination of workshop discussions with the Tanzanian Ministry of Health, including its Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children Department, United Nations Agencies, and the Risk Communication/Community Engagement committee to formulate the messaging strategy for this campaign. We selected spots from previous campaigns focusing on essential treatment-seeking behaviours, ECD and reproductive and child health.
When created, these spots were informed by extensive formative research in Tanzania, including focus groups discussions and interviews with local stakeholders that shaped the campaign’s key themes. Our team of local scriptwriters and social and behaviour change experts then created short, dramatic radio and audio-visual spots relevant to the Tanzanian context, each tackling one of the barriers identified in the formative research. All of our spots were pretested to ensure they were relatable and engaging for local audiences.
Saturation
Our Saturation+ methodology maximises impact on behaviours by ensuring our audiences are highly exposed to our radio and television spots. This means broadcasting from radio stations with the best transmitter strength, programme management, and reach. For this campaign, we broadcast radio spots on two radio stations in Tabora, five stations in Lake Zone regions, and one national station (Radio Free Africa). Each spot was broadcast 10 times a day, seven days a week for the duration of the campaign. The TV spots were broadcast on two channels, broadcasting once a day, 5-7 times a week during advertisement breaks for the evening news, a popular programme among the target audience, and a popular daily soap opera.
We are grateful to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) for supporting this project.