Planning social mobilization and communication for dengue fever prevention and control
A step-by-step guide
Summary
At the crossroads of Africa, Asia and Europe, the World Health Organization’s
Mediterranean Centre for Vulnerability Reduction (WMC) in Tunis is an international centre for social mobilization, training and operational research. WMC provides technical support at country, regional and global level: training programme managers and health workers to ensure their optimal contribution to prevention and control; and mobilizing civil society, health workers and policy-makers to ensure acceptance and sustainability of programmes.
WMC offers an innovative approach to social mobilization known as “COMBI” – Communication-for-Behavioural-Impact.
Developed and tested over several years, COMBI incorporates the lessons learnt from five decades of public health communication and draws substantially from the experience of private sector consumer communication. COMBI represents a neat coalescence of a variety of marketing, education, communication, promotion, advocacy and mobilization approaches that generally aim to do the same thing – have an impact on behaviour and foster programme–community partnerships.
For the first time in relation to dengue fever, this guide presents the basic steps and underlying principles of COMBI. It is intended for health planners, dengue or vector control programme managers and individuals, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other agencies with interests and/or expertise in developing biological, chemical, environmental and communication interventions to prevent and control dengue fever.