A South African university-practitioner partnership to strengthen capacity in social and behaviour change communication

Datos Bibliográficos

ID19530786
AutoresNicola Christofides (0000-0002-3559-6401, University of the Witwatersrand, autor de correspondencia), Nicola J Christofides, Sara Nieuwoudt (0000-0002-6658-2061, University of the Witwatersrand), Shereen Usdin (Soul City Institute for Health & Development Communication), Goldstein (0000-0002-3424-5319, University of the Witwatersrand), Susan Goldstein, Sharon Fonn (0000-0001-6115-8707, University of the Witwatersrand)
Año2013
Volumen6
Número1
Páginas19300
Fecha de publicación2013-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGlobal Health Action (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1654-9716 • E-ISSN: 1654-9880
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3402/gha.v6i0.19300
PMID23364096
OpenAlexW2030830369
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas11

Globally, communication plays an integral role in public health strategies, from infectious diseases to diseases related to lifestyles. The evolution of the field of social and behaviour change communication (SBCC), combined with the need for evidence based practice and multi-level interventions to promote health, and human resource gaps in sub-Saharan Africa have led to the imperative to standardise and formalise the field. Moreover, current practitioners come from different disciplinary backgrounds underlining the need to define common core skills and competencies. This paper describes the partnership between the Wits School of Public Health and the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication and how the partners responded to this need. It highlights the factors influencing sustainable institutional capacity to provide quality assured, accredited training. We describe an unexpected positive response from a number of practitioner organisations that have chosen to send multiple staff members for training, specifically to build a critical mass within their organisations. Finally, we note the interest from (mostly) southern-based academic institutions in setting up similar programmes and postulate that south-south collaborations can contribute to building sustainable context specific and evidence-informed SBCC programmes in the global south

Accreditation · Capacity building · Economic growth · General partnership · Geography · Medical education · Political science · Psychological intervention · Public health · Public relations · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Health Policy Implementation Science · Medicine · Nursing · Public Health Policies and Education