EXCLUSIVE

Behaviour change is one of the important factor needed to make India open defecation-free. Is it or isn't it easy to bring a change in behaviour?It is not easy to bring any behavioural changes in the people when it comes to open defacation. Strategic Communication expert Dr Deepak Gupta and Anusha Aggarwal conducted a research in the level of behaviour change communication that has occurred among select community members. They conducted research in four blocks of Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad and Muzzafarnagar districts( two  each). Ngonewsworld has access to the findings of the research work:

Argued by the social scientists, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to promoting and maintaining child health. Little does the development community realize that just one gram of human faeces can contain a billion microbes, which can, through oral-faecal transmission, cause a range of infections and diseases. A case in point - communication experts and public health researchers argued the case of polio eradication in India, wherein the communities, caregivers and even most health providers did not know the primary reason for polio virus transmission, i.e. oral-faecal transmission. Therefore, ensuring complete adherence to toilet-use that mitigates practice of open defecation serves as a critical barometer in judging health & development parameters.

Authors, Dr. Deepak Gupta and Ms. Anusha Agarwal, designed a qualitative research enquiry on the level of behaviour change communication that has occurred among select community members with regard to the practice of open defecation. This specific research was restricted to the four blocks, 2 each from the districts of Ghaziabad and Muzzafarnagar in the State of Uttar Pradesh (North India).

Given in the WASH sector, there is an ever increasing understanding that hygiene promotion warrants more than ‘business-as-usual’ approaches, whereas, in practice there exists still many health-based campaigns and IEC material-based approaches. Nevertheless, there is also a growing consensus in the WASH sector that hygiene-promotion should be behaviour-centered with focused and strategic messaging and that there is a critical need of local communication-research that seeks to identify main driving forces. As is evident, many organizations through large campaigns tend to tilt towards favoring a desirable technology as the main trigger for action and thus, use social marketing approaches to make it desirable. A diagonally variant to this approach is Unilever’s (Hindustan Lever Limited in India) work on making soap desirable. Whether it relates to hand-washing or using toilets for defecation, people-centered and individual-based strategic communication is critical for the SBCC experts in their work. While this approach may make the work of SBCC teams easier to scale (in theory), the varying local contexts cannot be overlooked. The current study collected data to enable an overarching assessment of the available communication platforms in the select districts, while documenting the prevalent media-habits of the communities. The enquiry also helped in understanding high-risk populations – those who continue to hesitate in accessing the available toilets or perhaps, do not have access to practicing safer, secured and affordable toilet service. In addition to providing insights in to the barriers to behavior-change in the community, the study also examined availability of and access to the on-going communication channels that are frequently accessed by the target groups. Argued by the social scientists, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to promoting and maintaining child health. Little does the development community realize that just one gram of human faeces can contain a billion microbes, which can, through oral-faecal transmission, cause a range of infections and diseases.[1] A case in point - communication experts and public health researchers argued the case of polio eradication in India, wherein the communities, caregivers and even most health providers did not know the primary reason for polio virus transmission, i.e. oral-faecal transmission.[2]

Note: A detailed research monograph is available with the authors, while a synopsis of the research finds is accessible through the URL: Open Defecation – A Behaviour Change Communication Challenge - India on the Move)