AFFORD began as a five-year (2005-2010) health marketing initiative in partnership with Futures Group International, the Malaria Consortium, Pulse Communication, Aclaim Africa and Communication for Development Foundation of Uganda and funded by USAID. With a three year extension (2011-2013), AFFORD will be led by CCP in partnership with Uganda Health Marketing Group (UHMG) to continue to integrate health communication and social marketing techniques to address a variety of health issues and behaviors in Uganda.
Avian influenza (AI) or “bird flu” could be the next great global health threat. Although considered uncommon, there are instances of a certain strain (H5N1) of the virus transmitting to humans. Since 2003 approximately 420 people have been infected 257 have died due to severe respiratory illness contracted through close contact with AI infected birds. Public health experts are concerned the virus may mutate into a communicable disease among humans, triggering an influenza pandemic. As a result, millions of people could be infected, crippling economies and social services resources.
Models developed at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health demonstrate the possibility to detect an influenza outbreak at its earliest stage and deploy resources to stop it. In response to this potential outbreak, the School’s Center for Communication Programs (CCP) provides expertise on strategic AI health communications focusing on prevention measures, preparedness, containment, and crisis management of an influenza outbreak.
The Global Program on Avian and Pandemic Influenza (A&PI) at CCP uses a health communication perspective to promote preparedness, prevention, and personal hygiene behaviors to curb animal-animal, animal-human, human-human transmission of the most recent strain of avian influenza, known as H5N1. These approaches are based on CCP’s behavior and social change frameworks which improve program design and achieve maximum impact. CCP works in over a dozen countries across Asia, Eurasia, Near East, Africa and the Americas to develop A&PI communication strategies for key audiences that include policy-makers, media personnel, health professionals, the poultry industry, households in contact with live poultry stock, and the public at-large.
CCP partners with governments, donors, NGOs and UN agencies to strengthen A&PI communications preparedness and response. CCP assists in harmonizing consistent messages across all partners to increase awareness about the potential pandemic. In this framework, CCP focuses on:
- Coordination
- Strategic design
- Message development
- Implementation
- Evaluation
CCP undertakes various approaches for A&PI preparedness and response, which include:
- Advocacy
- Mass media / BCC Material
- Research and Evaluation
- Training and Capacity Building
- Community Mobilization
CCP’s Global Program on Avian and Pandemic Influenza Brochure [1] is available for more information.
Contact Person
Basil Safi bsafi@jhuccp.org [2]Projects
The Avian and Pandemic Influenza Strategic Communication Action Planner (ASAP) project was funded by the Government of Japan. The initiative was spearheaded by a partnership of leading international organizations including UNICEF, FAO, WHO, CDC, and the World Bank. CCP’s role included developing a global Avian and Pandemic Influenza (A&PI) toolkit to guide strategic communication initiatives worldwide. The goal of the toolkit was to provide an easy-to-use strategic framework that would allow users to generate a communication strategy that met the minimum requirements for communication planning. This was deployed in a web-based environment which encouraged collaboration among health professionals in plan development. Phase II of the effort involved enabling UNICEF to manage the site and generate their own toolkits for different health issues using the same technology used for ASAP.
The Avian Influenza Control and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response Project, a three-year project funded by the World Bank, aimed to provide a strategic, multilevel and participatory communication campaign around Avian Influenza. Led by UNICEF, the project provided behavior change communication, advocacy, capacity building and community/social mobilization support to minimize the risks of avian influenza spreading throughout the Republic of Tajikistan. This was achieved by ensuring citizens were aware of the symptoms, understood the threat and were willing and able to engage in behaviors that protect themselves and their community. CCP provided technical assistance to the project’s action plan and assisted in harmonizing consistent messages across all partners to increase awareness about the potential pandemic.
Communication for Healthy Living (CHL), a seven-year project funded by USAID, aimed to enable Egyptian families and communities to protect and maintain their health. The project was led by CCP in partnership with the Egyptian Government. Through its affiliation with the global Health Communication Partnership (HCP), CHL provided communication support for healthy lifestyles and behavior change on a broad spectrum of health outcomes. More than 1.28 million people were reached by CHL outreach. CCP also worked with CHL to build capacity for health communication among the public, nongovernmental organization (NGO) and private sectors in Egypt.
The Community-Based Avian Influenza Control Project (CBAIC), a three-year project funded by USAID, was part of USAID and Indonesia’s strategy for reducing the risk of pandemic flu. Led by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), the goals of CBAIC included prevention of pandemic flu from H5N1 avian influenza (AI), building the Indonesian Government's capacity for pandemic response and reducing occurrence of AI transmission in poultry and humans. CCP’s role was to design and implement a short, intensive behavior change communications (BCC) strategy. An integrated approach included mass media, print material distribution, and community-level events, with each element reinforcing the impact of the others.
The Jordan Health Communication Partnership (JHCP) worked with a broad variety of public and private partners to implement a comprehensive national health communication strategy. A nine-year project funded by USAID, JHCP carried out cross-cutting strategic, integrated behavior change communication activities under a unified national brand, “Our Health, Our Responsibility.” Communication activities fostered health competence by empowering individuals, families, communities, and institutions with the necessary knowledge, skills and resources to improve and sustain health.
The Strategies Against Flu Emergence (SAFE) project is a two-year project to support USAID/Indonesia’s Avian and Pandemic Influenza (API) Program to reduce the impact and transmission of avian influenza (AI) to animals and humans, and limit the emergence of a pandemic influenza virus. Led by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), the SAFE project works to promote public-private partnerships, good poultry farming practices, improved biosecurity and hygiene behaviors at farms and markets, and improved care-seeking behavior for AI. The SAFE program is incentive-based, entrepreneurial and collaborative. The geographic focus is on ten high risk districts of West Java and Banten. As a core partner, JHU•CCP is designing and implementing strategic behavior change communication (BCC) campaigns targeted at workers along the poultry value chain and at poultry consumers who are at risk for AI.
