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Chris Morry's blog

Report on the recent review of communication reviews

The Communication Initiative together with UNICEF have just released a report that captures the perspectives of people who have been involved in various ways in polio communication reviews over the past several years. These people are senior polio programme staff, government officials, former communication review panelists, representatives of foundations and bi-lateral funders and front line polio programme staff.

Their views capture not only essential elements that have made past reviews successful but also areas that need to be strengthened if future reviews are to continue to be relevant to the programme. Some of the key recommendations from the report are:

  • panel members need more time in the field to improve their understanding of ground level challenges and realities;
  • greater emphasis should be placed on selecting panelists with the appropriate mix of skills including experience in the programme, understanding the country context and knowledge of local realities;
  • more time has to be set aside for a full discussion of findings and recommendations between programme partners, staff and panelists;
  • greater accountability for monitoring and implementation of recommendations;
  • communication review reports need to be shared quickly and widely with all partners to build broad support and understanding of communication programmes and strategies;
  • and more continuity should be developed between reviews to improve analysis and tracking of recommendations".

You can read a full summary of the report and download the complete report at: http://www.comminit.com/polio/content/looking-backlooking-forward-survey-results

Let us know what you think. Are these recommendations sufficient to ensure communication reviews remain relevant to the polio programme in its end game?

Understanding Local Community Resistance

To: The Health Communication Social Network within The Communication Initiative - including the Market Place for International Development

From: Chris Morry

I wanted to let you know about a new publication from Dr Sebastian Taylor titled "Culture and Behaviour in Mass Health Interventions: Lessons from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative". You can read a summary of the paper on CIs polio website here. Dr Taylor has worked on several polio communication reviews, is on the polio Technical Advisory Group for Pakistan and Afghanistan and has written several other papers on polio communication.

In this paper he poses a number of challenging questions regarding how the polio programme evaluates and responds to communities that resist immunisation. In his own words the main thesis is that, "Interpreting resistance to vaccination as essentially religio-cultural marginalises an understanding of resistance as the rational and strategic response by households and communities to systematic conditions of inequity and exclusion."

I'd be interested in hearing your perspectives. Does this analysis ring true to you? Do we leave the polio programme and other health interventions vulnerable by seeking overly simplistic explanations for resistance? Do we place too much emphasis on a lens that paints such resistance as a matter of poor information, ignorance or propaganda?

In support of his thesis Taylor notes that culture "has been treated as a dominant factor determining resistance to vaccination" in the GPEI.

Understanding Local Community Resistance

I wanted to let you know about a new publication from Dr Sebastian Taylor titled "Culture and Behaviour in Mass Health Interventions: Lessons from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative". Dr Taylor has worked on several polio communication reviews, is on the polio Technical Advisory Group for Pakistan and Afghanistan and has written several other papers on polio communication.

In this paper he poses a number of challenging questions regarding how the polio programme evaluates and responds to communities that resist immunisation. In his own words the main thesis is that, "Interpreting resistance to vaccination as essentially religio-cultural marginalises an understanding of resistance as the rational and strategic response by households and communities to systematic conditions of inequity and exclusion."

He notes that culture "has been treated as a dominant factor determining resistance to vaccination" in the GPEI. This resistance, "often occurring in areas with substantial Muslim population, has been associated with fear and rumour fuelled by ignorance", as well as religious objection, which he describes as "problematically merged in a religio-cultural interpretation of resistance as a kind of Islamic obscurantism." Yet attitudes about the polio programme "appear to vary substantially within small geographic areas. Rather than being a matter of common belief, public orientation appears to be shaped by a combination of religio-cultural and more localised socio-economic and political factors - in particular, the potentially aggressive nature of mass vaccination, and the perceived under-supply of other development goods."

I'd be interested in hearing your perspectives. Does this analysis ring true to you? Do we leave the polio programme and other health interventions vulnerable by seeking overly simplistic explanations for resistance?

Featured on the Media Development CI Website

Here are some recently featured summaries from CIs Media Development website

Media and Information Literacy: Policy and Strategy Guidelines
With a focus on the importance of media of all types as central to development, this resource explores media and information literacy (MIL), characterised here as "a basis for enhancing access to information and knowledge, freedom of expression, and quality education.
http://networks.comminit.com/mediadevelopment/node/add/blog

Promoting cultural advancement, community integration through radio
The times have changed and the drum and other communication tools have also moved with the times. The advancement of radio has revolutionised the interaction between traditional leaders and their subjects. Radio is now complementing the various traditional modes as a channel for communication between citizens and their traditional leaders.
http://www.comminit.com/media-development/content/promoting-cultural-advancement-community-integration-through-radio

You may have others you think people would be interested in. If you do send us a brief description and a link.

Featured on the Health, Rights, Media CI website

Here are some recently featured summaries from the theme website.

Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon - I, a Woman, Can Achieve Anything "Guaranteeing universal access to equitable and good quality reproductive health information and services free from coercion and discrimination is critical for achieving gender equality and ensuring that women and young people can participate as full members of society." http://networks.comminit.com/healthmedia/node/add/blog

Mind-Rights Film Festival (MRFF) This a short film festival and international competition that focuses on showcasing cinematographic works that deal with mental health issues in order to promote the rights of people with mental disorders. http://www.comminit.com/health_rights_media/content/mind-rights-film-festival-mrff

Health Equity

This recent resource titled A Practitioner's Guide for Advancing Health Equity: Community Strategies for Preventing Chronic Disease offers a resource for public health practitioners working to advance health equity through community health interventions. http://www.comminit.com/health_rights_media/content/practitioner%27s-guide-advancing-health-equity-community-strategies-preventing-chronic-dis

It may well be of interest to those working in the area of health equity at the community level as well as those of you working in other areas of health and equity communication.

Responding to questions about the polio work of the World Health Organization in Syria

The ongoing outbreak of polio in Syria is one of the most challenging and visible outbreaks in the history of polio eradication. The paralysis of children by polio throws into sharp relief the damage to the country’s health infrastructure and the impact of that on the health of the Syrian people. When society and order become precarious, health systems break down and people suffer from the effects. Syria has been no exception.

Media reports over the past few months have raised questions about the work of the World Health Organization in Syria, particularly as regards response to the outbreak of polio. The WHO has developed a table intended to answer some of these questions, recognizing the scale of the crisis and the challenge of what is happening in Syria. View the table and learn more about WHO's response on the GPEI website - http://www.comminit.com/polio/category/sites/global/polio/ .

Your Perspective: Polio Strategy and Action Survey

To: The Drum Beat Network participants in Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India

As someone who has communication, media, development expertise and interests we are very interested in your perspectives on the strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of polio communication. Please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/poliosurvey2013

The Communication Initiative is involved with other agencies in a series of polio communication reviews. These are designed to provide positive, critical feedback that support improving the effectiveness of polio communication activities.

To inform our contributions to this polio communication review process we would welcome your critical insight, analysis and perspective on present polio communication strategies and activities. We are seeking reflections and ideas from people in this network whether you are directly involved or not in polio action. Both perspectives are important.

Please do contribute to this process by completing the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/poliosurvey2013

Your submissions will be in complete confidence. No names or other identifying information will be associated with any of the responses.

Please do take a few minutes to share your perspectives at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/poliosurvey2013

The results from the inputs of all respondents will inform the ongoing polio communication review efforts.

With many thanks for taking 10 to 15 minutes to complete this survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/poliosurvey2013

Best wishes - Warren

Warren Feek Executive Director The Communication Initiative

Communicating with Context: polio eradication and the political economy of vaccination (submitted by CI for Dr Taylor)

Just because it has been around for a long time does not mean we are not close to eradication
In the course of recent reviews of the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) in Pakistan and Afghanistan, two things occurred to me about the communications and social mobilisation component of both national programmes. First, attention to social data (evidence-based analysis of the attitudes and behaviour of households confronted with the possibility of polio vaccination) has improved enormously in recent years.

Second, however, analysis of the causes of poor programme performance (high rates of missed children) is still too narrowly conceived and operationalized. Research supporting polio communications seems to focus heavily or exclusively on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of eligible households - as if the behaviour of households when confronted with the possibility of polio vaccination is the result, uniquely, of knowledge and attitude, and not of other, more material circumstances that determine what kinds of behaviour are practically possible. In a corollary fashion, research protocols appear to investigate household knowledge, attitudes and behaviour as if polio were the only - or at least most central - concern in the lives of households which, in reality, struggle with a hundred more pressing and pertinent issues every day.

Observations from the field

Hi Everyone,

We are about to open a new space for discussion and/or information sharing. CI will be taking the lead on this by incorporating occasional - and brief! - updates from field trips together with equally brief and occasional reflections on issues that seem to be emerging or important. Some of the people who participate as consultants in upcoming communication reviews and or assessments will also be sharing brief pieces focused on a communication issue they saw during their field experiences. We encourage and look forward to your engagement with any of these pieces and hope to build the size of this group over time.

Let me begin with a brief update on the recent Pakistan TAG.

Communication Highlights from the recent Polio Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting in Islamabad Pakistan

Below is a quick synopsis of communication of communication related findings and recommendations from the TAG which I participated in last month (March 21 and 22). The full report should be coming out soon and will by summarized on the CI Polio website. In the meantime I thought some of you might be interested in a sneak peek. This is being followed up with a full communication review organized by UNICEF Pakistan with CI providing support and international expertise. Watch for our summary of findings findings from that review once they are finalised.

Polio Networks