Culture vs other factors in driving positive outcomes in SRH and MNCH among women and girls in Africa, Asia and SE Asia
Summary:
The purpose of this work, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was to build a baseline understanding of poor young women and girls in nine different geographies across Africa and Asia with respect to the choices they make around their own sexual and reproductive health and the care of their infants. The goal was to use this understanding as a springboard for further work to ensure that health products, programs and services designed to help these women are appealing, relevant and effective for them. Designing effective interventions requires understanding the specifics of a woman's life. Segmentation is the process of identifying groups who are similar to each other and different from those in the other segments on the dimensions that matter most. In this project, we segmented women based on which elements drive the behaviors that affect their sexual and reproductive health outcomes.
Background/Objectives:
The purpose of this work, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was to build a baseline understanding of poor young women and girls in nine geographies across Africa and Asia with respect to the choices they make around their own sexual and reproductive health and the care of their infants. The goal was to use this understanding as a springboard for further work to ensure that health products, programs and services designed to help these women are appealing, relevant and effective for them.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Traditional segmentation if used at all focuses primarily on demographics and life stage and further tends to describe the archetypal people in each segment and how they differ from those in other segments. However, understanding who a woman is and the context of her life is unlikely to tell us how she can alter her outcomes. This work piloted a behavior change segmentation which derived the pathways to change that is most important for each woman and then grouped women based upon their common pathways. The segmentation was based on 9,000 interviews across the 9 geographies, preceded by in-depth qualitative research.
Results/Lessons Learned:
Within each country, women and girls were segmented by their outcome and common pathways to these outcomes. For example, the women in Burkina Faso divide into four segments based on their pathways to improved outcomes. The paper provides some examples of how women are understood using this method. Fatoumata has the most positive outcomes based on her strong Agency. Nafissatou is rural, very poor, largely illiterate and suffers in part because she doesn't see her own healthy behavior as an important Goal. Edith is the oldest and would benefit from increased Agency and improved health, Goals. Irene has the lowest income and has the least autonomy and highest victimization. She lacks basic access to products, technologies and services. Improving her Environment would enhance her outcomes.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
The study showed the importance of looking at using both behavioural outcomes (e.g. low condom use) and the reasons for positive or negative outcomes, to segment women and girls into groups that can be targeted with similar behavior change interventions. Using a segmentation around behavioral pathways is a powerful way to understand individuals and develop appropriate behavior change campaigns.
Abstract submitted by:
Melissa Baker-Onyancha - Kantar Group
The purpose of this work, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was to build a baseline understanding of poor young women and girls in nine different geographies across Africa and Asia with respect to the choices they make around their own sexual and reproductive health and the care of their infants. The goal was to use this understanding as a springboard for further work to ensure that health products, programs and services designed to help these women are appealing, relevant and effective for them. Designing effective interventions requires understanding the specifics of a woman's life. Segmentation is the process of identifying groups who are similar to each other and different from those in the other segments on the dimensions that matter most. In this project, we segmented women based on which elements drive the behaviors that affect their sexual and reproductive health outcomes.
Background/Objectives:
The purpose of this work, which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was to build a baseline understanding of poor young women and girls in nine geographies across Africa and Asia with respect to the choices they make around their own sexual and reproductive health and the care of their infants. The goal was to use this understanding as a springboard for further work to ensure that health products, programs and services designed to help these women are appealing, relevant and effective for them.
Description of Intervention and/or Methods/Design:
Traditional segmentation if used at all focuses primarily on demographics and life stage and further tends to describe the archetypal people in each segment and how they differ from those in other segments. However, understanding who a woman is and the context of her life is unlikely to tell us how she can alter her outcomes. This work piloted a behavior change segmentation which derived the pathways to change that is most important for each woman and then grouped women based upon their common pathways. The segmentation was based on 9,000 interviews across the 9 geographies, preceded by in-depth qualitative research.
Results/Lessons Learned:
Within each country, women and girls were segmented by their outcome and common pathways to these outcomes. For example, the women in Burkina Faso divide into four segments based on their pathways to improved outcomes. The paper provides some examples of how women are understood using this method. Fatoumata has the most positive outcomes based on her strong Agency. Nafissatou is rural, very poor, largely illiterate and suffers in part because she doesn't see her own healthy behavior as an important Goal. Edith is the oldest and would benefit from increased Agency and improved health, Goals. Irene has the lowest income and has the least autonomy and highest victimization. She lacks basic access to products, technologies and services. Improving her Environment would enhance her outcomes.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
The study showed the importance of looking at using both behavioural outcomes (e.g. low condom use) and the reasons for positive or negative outcomes, to segment women and girls into groups that can be targeted with similar behavior change interventions. Using a segmentation around behavioral pathways is a powerful way to understand individuals and develop appropriate behavior change campaigns.
Abstract submitted by:
Melissa Baker-Onyancha - Kantar Group
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: Evolving Communications via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)