Shaping demand and practices to improve family health outcomes in northern India: A framework for behavior change communication

An initiative from the Population Council could help in developing a comprehensive communication strategy to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health, and nutrition outcomes in Uttar Pradesh and other northern states of India. The identification of key barriers to and facilitating factors for selected target behaviors that have a direct bearing on maternal and child health could go a long way in packaging specific messages for different stakeholders, such as women, husbands, elder family members, opinion makers in the community, and frontline health workers. One of the key deliverables of this publication is to fill an important knowledge gap to be used to develop an appropriate behavior change communication (BCC) and management strategy to shape demand and practices. This report presents an evidence-based BCC framework for eight selected target behaviors which, according to the literature review, could have a significant impact on neonatal, infant, and maternal mortality outcomes if adopted at scale. The eight target behaviors were selected on the basis of their potential impact on maternal, neonatal, and child mortality in Uttar Pradesh