Development projects vs. internally displaced populations in India: a literature based appraisal

"India has invested in industrial projects, dams, roads, mines, power plants and new cities to achieve rapid economic growth. Available reports indicate that more than 21 million people are internally displaced populations (IDPs) due to development projects in India Although the tribal population only makes up eight percent of the total population, more than 40 percent of the development induced displaced are tribal peoples in India. The difficulties faced by IDPs are numerous but distinct. Their right to participate and contest in the political processes is difficult. Such consequences lead to the requirement of legislations that address not only the issue of compensation, but also of resettlement, rehabilitation and participation in negotiation. Hence, the objectives of the study are to bring forth the impacts of major development projects on Internally Displaced Populations in India." (author's abstract

A content analysis of media coverage on road safety and road traffic crashes in Colombia

Introduction: In Colombia, road traffic crashes are the eighth leading cause of death. In 2017, as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), Vital Strategies supported government-led journalist trainings in Colombia to shift media discourse of road safety as a public health and development issue with known risk factors and achievable solutions, to ultimately catalyze public and policymaker concern and action. This study evaluates the effects these trainings had on road safety reporting.Methods: Articles about BIGRS road safety work published between 1 May 2017 and Aug. 30, 2021 were collected from a database maintained by communication officers. The sample included 870 articles, which were systematically analyzed for year-wise frequency by independent coders. Inter-reliability (Cohen’s Kapp K > 0.94) was established using a codebook developed to identify examples of best practices shared during trainings.Results: From 2017 to 2021, there was a 27% increase in articles that situated road traffic collisions (RTCs) as due to systemic issues (thematic framing) rather than isolated events (episodic framing). Almost all observed articles used at least one WHO-recommended story angle (96%) and key element (95%). Reporting angles focused on the human story were largely underutilized (2%–5%). Government representatives (81%), mostly from the Secretary of Mobility (67%), were the most cited sources and road safety advocates were the least (3%). Use of terms “crash” and “collision” increased across the study period (crash: 47% in 2017 to 59% in 2021; collision: 0.4% in 2019 to 5% in 2020). However, RTCs continued to be widely called “accidents” (46%). More than half of articles referenced either “victims” or “vulnerable road users” (55%); use of “person” to refer to victims/vulnerable road users increased from 33% in 2017 to 56% in 2020.Conclusion: Over the course of the BIGRS journalist training program, reporting in Colombia increasingly used best practices to frame road safety as a public health issue. This highlights how media engagement is important to comprehensive road safety strategies and should be more widely adopted. Future training efforts should focus on finding the human story, and on changing overreliance on terms like “accident” that make RTCs seem inevitable

Development Projects vs. Internally Displaced Populations in India: a Literature Based Appraisal

Singh Negi N, Ganguly S. Development Projects vs. Internally Displaced Populations in India: a Literature Based Appraisal. COMCAD Arbeitspapiere - Working Papers, 103. Bielefeld: COMCAD - Center on Migration, Citizenship and Development; 2011

International best practice adopted in China: evidence-based mass media campaigns to support city-level 100% smoke free laws

Background and challenges to implementation On June 1 st , 2015, a remarkable 100% Smoke Free Law came into effect in Beijing. On January 1 st , 2017, Shenzhen became 100% smoke free city and on March 1 st , 2017 the Shanghai smoke free law came into effect. As a result, over 60 million population in China are now protected from second-hand smoke (SHS) exposure in public places, work places and public transportation. Intervention or response Vital Strategies has collaborated with city governments, including Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai, to conduct evidence-based tobacco control mass media campaigns, incorporating message testing research to guide development of communication materials, integrated media planning utilizing a mix of media communication channels and undertaking evaluation surveys to measure campaign impact. To support implementation of the Beijing 100% smoke free law a campaign was designed to increase understanding of the harms of SHS exposure, particularly to children, and to support enforcement of the law. The campaign featured a new television ad, Smoke-free Restaurant , highlighting specific dangers of SHS exposure for children, and emphasizing the benefits of the SF law in providing protection from these harms. Results and lessons learnt A population door-to-door evaluation survey was conducted in urban and peri-urban areas of Beijing from July 1 st to August 12 th 2015 in a total of 900 households. The survey found the majority of smokers who saw the ad said it made them concerned about the effects of their smoking on their family's health (89%) and more likely to avoid exposing others to their cigarette smoke (94%). Almost all respondents said seeing the ad made them more likely to reduce their children's exposure to SHS (smokers and non-smokers both 97%). Similarly, 87% of non‐smokers said the ad made them more likely to protect themselves from SHS exposure. Conclusions and key recommendations The results reflect the important role that mass media campaigns can play in supporting implementation of tobacco control policies

Using message adaptation and pre-testing to achieve resource efficiencies for best practice lung health communication programs in low- and middle-income country settings

Background Effective message design is essential if lung health communication programs are to be cost efficient as well as meeting behavioural objectives. Strong and scientific methodology of message testing precedes development of any mass media campaign. There is a need of a careful combination of scientific content and marketing expertise to make a campaign effective and impactful. The most important component of any effective media campaign is to allow target audience to view, engage and respond to the campaign. Hence, adaptation and pre-testing of messages becomes important to test the comprehension, understanding and potential effectiveness of the campaign. Methods Twelve scripts were adapted from successful tobacco control communication programs conducted in high-income countries. The scripts were adapted to address smoking, smokeless tobacco use, and second-hand smoke, following which they were developed into animatics (animated video and audio executions) for ease of interpretation, and pre-tested through 20 FGDs with tobacco users and non-users conducted in India. Qualitative discussion and quantitative assessment was conducted through self-administered questionnaires with thirteen standardised items and 5 point Likert scales. Results Quantitative findings identified that a number of concepts for smoking/smokeless tobacco, and second-hand smoke scored consistently highly against indicators including: message was easy to understand, taught me something new, is believable, is relevant to my life, and; l would be likely to talk to someone else about this message. Qualitative findings provided insights into diagnostic amendments for the concepts. Conclusions Following analysis of findings, highly rated concepts were modified and final television and radio public service announcements were produced to support government of India, Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Product Act (COTPA) communication programs (sample animatics and final PSAs to be shared during the presentation)

Evaluation of a targeted intervention to most at risk populations of tobacco users through a tea-shops community signage program

Background The, &#8220;Leaving No One Behind&#8221; report to address the Sustainable Development Goals, recommends approaches to reduce long-term vulnerability and generate sustainable, meaningful change. Evidence from Bangladesh points to a higher burden of tobacco related morbidity and mortality in &#8220;most at risk populations&#8221; with vulnerability largely due to social and economic disparities. Challenges in addressing tobacco with most at risk populations are lower access to information, low risk perceptions toward tobacco related diseases, and poor self-efficacy perceptions toward quitting. Targeted interventions to vulnerable groups may provide cost effective approaches to address these inequalities. Methods A tea-shop signage intervention was utilised in slum areas of Dhaka city. A street-intercept survey evaluation comprised a sample of 600 male and female tobacco users, aged 18 - 55-years randomly selected from 24 sites.. Measures included recall of the tea-shops signage and resultant knowledge, attitude, intention and cessation related indicators. Chi-square analyses and independent measures t-tests explored differences in predictor variables of vulnerability, income, education, gender and location. Results Findings identified high recall of the tea-shops lung cancer message (83%) and strong agreement by campaign aware groups that the signs: Make tobacco users see the real harms of their tobacco use (96%); Discuss the message with others (62%); Know about serious illnesses caused by tobacco (75%); Try to persuade others to stop using tobacco (64%), and; Makes me more confident to try to quit (76%). Comparisons of cessation related behaviours by campaign awareness; Tried to stop smoking during the past 2 months (59% vs 40%); Tried to stop smokeless tobacco (49% vs 35%); identified significant improvements in quit attempts (< 95%) and a number of positive correlations according to vulnerability indicators. Conclusions Targeted interventions in community settings to most at risk populations of tobacco users, can provide cost-effective approaches to support cessation related behaviors

#OneTobaccoTax: social media campaign for unified tobacco taxes under Goods and Services Tax in India

Background and challenges to implementation India introduced a Goods and Services Tax (GST), effective 1 July 2017. There was ambiguity on how tobacco would be taxed - cigarettes were known to be in the highest tax bracket, there was possibility bidi would fall under the ´essential commodities tax rate of 5% and there was no information about smokeless tobacco. Vital Strategies and partners were involved in advocating for a unified tax in the highest tax bracket for all tobacco. Intervention or response The campaign focussed on health harm messaging while calling for all tobacco products to be included in the highest bracket. Vital Strategies executed an intensive "#OneTobaccoTax" campaign from October 2016 - July 2017. The social media campaign ran in multiple phases in sync with mass media campaigns, earned media activities and offline advocacy. It comprised a website and social media messages and an online Thunderclap campaign. The objective was to influence key decision makers by (1) Calling for high, unified taxes (2) A focus on Bidi, calling for their inclusion in the highest bracket. Results and lessons learnt Analytics suggested that #OneTobaccoTax, reached out to approximately 1.3 million people. 1,474 tweets targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, which were viewed 283,757 times. Two thunderclap campaigns acquired 747 supporters that were potentially seen by 7,12,239 people on Twitter and Facebook. Key opinion leaders tweeted using #OneTobaccoTax. Conclusions and key recommendations This demonstrates how social media can be used to target messages to policy makers and key opinion leaders. People who agreed with our campaign lent their voice and shared our messages through their own social media, which showed support for higher tobacco taxes, and allowed supporters to target decision makers at national and sub-national level. The campaign's objective was attained as the GST council decided to tax all tobacco products, including bidi, under the highest tax bracket

Using synergised social media approaches to support tobacco control policy and cessation related behaviours in Bangladesh

Background Social media, synergised with mass media, may provide a powerful, low-cost channel of communication for public health interventions, including promotion of new policies such as graphic health warnings on tobacco packs. However, the evidence on the efficacy of social media to support tobacco control within low -and middle-income countries, is sparse. An innovative website was developed to examine the potential of social media to increase bridging and bonding of social capital and self-efficacy to quit, given the importance of providing cessation support services, which are seen as the 'weakest link' in WHOs MPOWER framework. Methods A population level, mass media campaign; “People Behind the Packs” was synergized with social media to raise awareness of new graphic health warnings and support tobacco cessation in Bangladesh. One website page contained four public service announcements featuring patients suffering from diseases depicted on new pack warnings. Another, “I can quit" page, provided quit tips from a doctor. Site metrics were reviewed and an online Survey Monkey questionnaire administered to explore attitudes and cessation related behaviors of tobacco users who accessed the webpages. Results Site metrics identified 100,410 (65% of website visitors) viewed the quit page immediately following the intervention, with around 24,000 (15%) accessing patient testimonial messages, and 20,474 (13%) signing the petition. Viewing by gender was balanced (46% females and 54% males) with 4.8 million “Likes” on campaign content on Facebook over the 6-week campaign period, with the top five posts reaching 1.68 million people. 1225 respondents completed the self-administered survey. Responses identified good discussion with others about quitting or cutting down (23%), intentions to cut-down (36%) or quit smoking (45%). Conclusions Social media can provide low-cost interventions to engage audiences, promote discussion, and support policy and cessation related behaviors. This impact may be increased when linked to other mass media campaign components