On September 6 at 9 AM EDT, login to: https://connect.johnshopkins.edu/fp-evidence/

For decades, social and behavior change (SBC) has been used in family planning (FP) programs to positively influence behaviors around healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy, modern contraceptive use, contraceptive method selection and gender dynamics in FP decision-making with impressive results. However, these SBC successes and tools are too often obscured in the vast landscape of health and FP literature. But no more.

On September 6, from 9 to 10 a.m. EDT, the Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) will host a webinar and share emerging platforms that centralize FP and SBC tools and evidence – among them, HC3’s new FP/SBC Evidence database. The online, searchable collection features nearly 250 peer-reviewed articles highlighting SBC’s contribution to modern FP uptake in low- and middle- income countries around the world. Learn more about the need for evidence and efforts to close the evidence gap.

Moderated by: Joan Kraft, PhD, Gender Adviser, USAID, Global Health Bureau

Dr. Kraft is a gender advisor in the Office of Population and Reproductive Health at USAID. She has developed and evaluated social and behavior change communication interventions, including community mobilization, radio serial dramas, group-based interventions and clinic-based interventions in developing countries and the United States. She provides technical assistance for integrating gender into family planning programming.

Presenters include:

Rebecka Lundgren, MPH, PhD, Director of Research and the Passages Project, Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health

Dr. Lundgren has over 25 years of experience developing and testing reproductive health and behavior change programs, with particular interest in expanding family planning choice, youth and engaging men in reproductive health. Dr. Lundgren¹s current research interests include systematic approaches to scale-up, social barriers to family planning use and prevention of gender-based violence.

Leslie Snyder, PhD, HC3 Consultant, Professor in Dept. of Communication, University of Connecticut

Dr. Snyder served as the research lead for HC3’s Family Planning and Social and Behavior Change Evidence Database. Dr. Snyder has extensive experience in health communication campaign design and evaluation, and she studies the intended and unintended effects of the media, including social marketing campaigns, commercial advertising and political communication. She also conducts meta-analyses of mediated interventions.

Erin Portillo, MPH, HC3 Family Planning Program Officer

Ms. Portillo is a public health professional with nine years’ experience in international development, five of which have been devoted to sexual and reproductive health project design and implementation. Ms. Portillo served as a technical lead on the HC3 FP/SBC Evidence Database, and has helped create multiple HC3 FP SBC tools over her tenure.