Integrated Social and Behavior Change and the Enabling Environment

In recent years, social and behavior change (SBC) programming has experienced a notable shift away from a vertical approach focusing on one health or development topic to integrated approaches concerning multiple health or development issues or outcomes under the same program. Integrated SBC programs aim to address factors such as knowledge, attitudes, and norms pertaining to multiple health areas or development sectors in a coordinated and intentional way that influence multiple health outcomes. They have the potential to reduce duplication, lower costs, avoid missed opportunities, provide the right services and information to the right clients at the right time, and achieve better success. Such integration is already happening across many health areas/sectors, yet the evidence base to support this is limited.

At the same time, programs are often faced with the challenge of transferring knowledge into behavior. A wide variety of contextual factors influence the conditions for action (and non-action). An enabling environment brings together three interrelated groups of practices: policies, legislation, and financing; institutions, governance, and management; and social and economic factors. This enabling environment often intersects with SBC approaches, including integrated SBC. The interaction within this nexus can go both ways. The enabling environment can act on SBC approaches in a way that facilitates or creates barriers, while SBC approaches can identify areas where the enabling environment could be strengthened and then work to create a more supportive environment. Breakthrough RESEARCH has generated a portfolio of evidence to further unpack this intersection of SBC and the enabling environment and to build the evidence base for integrated SBC.

• Legacy resource document: English | French
• Slide Deck
• Webinar recording: English with French subtitles