Principle: Actionable

Behaviour change campaigns

Tactics to apply to make your communications actionable

Design a behaviour change campaign

A health campaign follows a specific sequence that moves the target audience from awareness of an issue towards a behaviour resulting in a specific health outcome. An effective campaign must also adapt to, and consider the context of, the community it serves. Success is most likely when the campaign is integrated across headquarters, regional and country offices and follows these key practices.

Involve partners early in the campaign

A campaign can benefit from organizations already actively promoting the health issue.

Presenting a consistent message from multiple sources increases the likelihood of action. When communicators involve partners at the beginning of a campaign, the partners can:

prepare their own materials
conduct complementary media activities
engage their constituency.

Use trusted messengers

Trusted messengers and high-profile personalities can add their voices to the campaign.

And they can:

help overcome barriers, such as fear of stigma, to behaviour change
address social norms that conflict with the desired behaviour
model the desired behaviour.

Ensure availability of community resources

Some recommended actions, such as getting vaccinated, quitting smoking, and screening for depression, require organization or community resources.

To ensure that the target audience has access to these resources, communicators should:

create materials and activities to direct people to the resources;
check resource availability before recommending action;
work with country offices and local partners to provide information on available resources; and
use WHO’s Health Campaign Handbook to learn how to: