Towards a global policy against alcohol marketing to youth: Challenges and recommendations for research

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Towards A Global Policy Against Alcohol Marketing to Youth: Challenges and Recommendations for Research.

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Social norms: a review

Social norms, as a topic of inquiry, has garnered significant attention from a variety of perspectives in recent years. Because of the rapidly-growing interest in social norms from scholars in multiple disciplines, this area of scholarship is often characterized by a lack of clarity on what constitutes social norms and how key concepts are operationalized. The objectives of this article are to (a) provide a review of the fast-expanding literature on social norms, (b) delineate similarities and differences in key operational definitions, (c) review theories that explicate how norms affect behaviors, (d) propose a revised theoretical framework that helps organize our understanding of normative inf luence on behavior, and (e) provide suggestions for future research in this area. This review highlights the need to consider whether a behavior is enacted spontaneously or after deliberation. If the former, whichever attitude or norm is most salient will likely have a direct effect on behavior. If the latter, we propose that behavioral, individual, and contextual attributes will inf luence the extent to which norms shape behavioral intentions and subsequent behavior. Finally, this review highlights the need for more studies designed to test the causal relationship between social norms and behaviors, as well as those that study norms from a qualitative perspective

How collective norms and media use affect attitudes about violence against women and contraception use in sub-Saharan Africa

Background: Contraceptive use and attitudes about violence against women, though enacted at the individual level, are also driven by factors at the interpersonal and social levels. The role of mass media in promoting social norms surrounding these attitudes and behaviors has not received much scholarly attention but can be helpful to illuminate areas for intervention. Hypothesis: We proposed and tested the hypothesis that collective norms (defined as a groups aggregate behavior or attitudes) would be associated with individual level attitudes (tolerance towards violence against women) and behaviors (contraception use). This relationship was further hypothesized to vary by media use, such that the relationship between collective norms and individual attitudes and behaviors would be strong when media use was low, and vice versa. Method/Design: Data come from the 2016 Ethiopian and Tanzanian Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 6,907 and N = 4,084 in the two countries, respectively). Multi-level regressions were run within nested models to predict individual level contraception use and tolerance for violence from collective norms for contraception use and tolerance for violence, media use, and their interaction, controlling for age, wealth, education and urban versus rural. Marginal probabilities were estimated to examine the interaction effects more closely and hierarchical multi level models were run to examine the between community variation. Results: Hypotheses, tested in the context of modern contraceptive use and tolerance for violence against women, were supported in three out of the four interactions, (OR = .99, p = \u3c .001) (OR = .99, p = \u3c .001) (β = -.05, p = \u3c .01), but not for tolerance towards violence against women in the Tanzanian data set (β = .00, p \u3e .05). Conclusion: These results support the idea that mass media can serve as external agents of change to attenuate the impact of unhealthy collective norms on individual attitudes and behaviors. Implications for public health campaigns are discussed

Improving Adolescents’ Driving Behaviors through a Personal Narrative-Based Psychosocial Intervention in Serbia

Objectives: Road traffic crashes continue to be the leading cause of death among adolescents. While males are more vulnerable to crashes than females, driver education interventions are less likely to succeed among males than females. Some studies suggest that stronger optimistic bias and overconfidence bias in males may be the reason for this. Methods: In a quasi-experiment conducted in Serbia, forty schools were stratified by size and randomly assigned to watch a road traffic safety presentation utilizing personal narratives or to a control arm. Surveys were administered before the intervention (N=1,449) and again six months later (N=1,072). Data was analyzed by gender in order to investigate gender differences. Results: Risk perceptions improved for both males and females, and injunctive norms improved for females (t= 1.87, p \u3c .05 for males and t= 2.0, p \u3c .01 for females). Improvements in overconfidence bias and descriptive norms were predictive of improvements in high-risk driving behaviors (β= .21, p \u3c .001 for males and β= .25, p \u3c .001 for females; β= -.15, p \u3c .001 for males and β= -.11, p \u3c .01 for females, respectively). A significant interaction between improvements in injunctive norms and the intervention revealed that males whose injunctive norms improved were significantly more likely to be affected by the intervention, compared to the other groups (β= .13, p \u3c .05). Conclusions: Interventions targeting road traffic safety behaviors in adolescents should utilize a gendered approach. For males in particular, influencing perceptions of injunctive norms is important for intervention efficacy

Innovations in Evaluating Health Campaigns in Developing Countries

When conducting research in resource-poor settings, what research-method textbooks prescribe often varies substantially from what actually gets implemented on the ground. Randomization often breaks down, extraneous noise often pollutes the purity of experimental designs, and other challenges emerge in the field. The panel will highlight some of those challenges and engage the audience in discussions about possible solutions. Dr. Boulay will illustrate an analytic approach that combines propensity score matching and mediation analysis to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of SBCC activities. Dr. Firestone will discuss PSI\u27s experience using coarsened exact matching to strengthen evaluation of its behavior change communications programs. Case studies of how the methods have been applied will be discussed

Development of a Communication Strategy to Reduce Violence against Children in South Africa: A Social-Ecological Approach

Research on violence against children, though extensive, has not been effectively deployed for the development and tailoring of communication efforts aimed at specific national, local and cultural contexts within which such violence occurs. This article presents a staged, multi-sectoral communication strategy to reduce the incidence of violence against children in South Africa. Drawing on formative data collected through a literature review, key informant interviews, focus groups, and a stakeholder review meeting, the research team, in collaboration with UNICEF South Africa, formulated a communication strategy aimed at combatting violence against children. The data analysis and strategy development within a socialecological framework sought to identify factors at multiple levels that contribute to violence against children in the South African context. The communication strategy is designed to achieve positive social and behaviour change outcomes in South Africa with respect to the treatment of children, and also to provide an approach as well as specific elements that are potentially replicable to some extent in other countries.CA201

Designing a socio-normative intervention to reduce anemia in Odisha India: A formative research protocol [version 1; referees: 2 approved]

Background: More than half of women of reproductive age in India are anemic. Anemia is associated with increased risk of preterm delivery, higher maternal mortality and contributes to fatigue, which affects women’s work productivity. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends daily oral iron and folic acid (IFA) supplements during pregnancy and weekly supplements for women of reproductive age. Government programs and global donors have distributed and promoted IFA supplements in India for over four decades. However, initial intake and compliance remain inadequate. Objectives: This protocol describes the formative research phase of a larger study, which will test, through a randomized controlled trial, the hypothesis that a social norms-based behavioral intervention in Odisha, India will improve uptake of IFA supplements and reduce anemia among reproductive age women as compared to usual care. The focus of this paper is on the formative research required to develop a sound intervention. We will examine socio-normative barriers to and facilitators of IFA supplement uptake. Methods and analysis: Based on the Theory of Normative Social Behavior, we will adopt a mixed-method, multilevel approach. We will collect data using focus groups, in-depth interviews, observations, Rapid Participatory Ethnographic Evaluation and Research (PEER) techniques, and perceptual mapping methods. Our sample includes reproductive age women (pregnant and not pregnant), their husbands, their mothers/in law and key stakeholders. After analyzing the results, we will hold a convening in India to collaboratively design the intervention. Following the intervention design, we will test components of the intervention, gather user feedback and tweak as necessary. Additionally, to improve adoption and sustainability of the intervention, we will conduct policy dialogue with stakeholders throughout the formative research. Impact: This study will contribute to the social norms and behavioral intervention research and inform policymakers about th