Empowering youth for social change through the Shujaaz multimedia platform in Kenya
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The Shujaaz multimedia platform illustrates how digital and analogue media can be effectively combined to shift social norms around contraception, financial independence, and youth empowerment in Kenya. The platform helps normalize family planning as a responsible and aspirational behavior, using relatable stories and youth-centered narratives to challenge stigma, foster open conversations, […]
“I got courage from knowing that even a daughter-in-law can earn her living”: Mixed methods evaluation of a family-centred intervention to prevent violence against women and girls in Nepal.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study underscores that transforming gender norms within families—by working with both women and men, as well as older and younger generations—can create meaningful change, reducing violence and enhancing women’s empowerment. Objectives: This study evaluates a family-centered intervention in Nepal designed to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG) by addressing […]
Effectiveness of a multilevel intervention to reduce violence and increase condom use in intimate partnerships among female sex workers: cluster randomised controlled trial in Karnataka, India
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The Samvedana Plus reduced the acceptance of intimate partner violence, increased awareness of self-protection strategies, and fostered solidarity among sex workers. These findings highlight the importance of addressing deeply embedded norms that normalize violence in intimate relationships but also emphasize that changing norms may require broader structural and community-level engagement beyond […]
Patriarchy and gender-inequitable attitudes as drivers of intimate partner violence against women in the central region of Ghana.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study shows that IPV in this context is not just individual behavior but part of a broader social system supported by patriarchal norms, rigid gender hierarchies, and notions of male authority. Successful prevention efforts must directly target these social norms, emphasizing community-wide change, the transformation of masculine ideals, and the […]
COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT FOR HEALTH (CSH) PROGRAMME SAFE LOVE OUTCOME EVALUATION REPORT
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The Safe Love campaign provides strong evidence that mass media behavior change communication (BCC) can influence social norms related to HIV prevention, particularly around condom use, HIV testing, and perceptions of sexual behavior. Notably, the campaign shifted perceptions about community approval of condom use with casual partners and the belief that […]
The Saleema initiative in Sudan to abandon female genital mutilation: Outcomes and dose response effects
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The Saleema Initiative in Sudan demonstrates the power of branding and social marketing to shift entrenched social norms supporting female genital mutilation. By promoting a new social identity around uncut girls and fostering public discourse, Saleema reduced the perception that cutting is a common or socially accepted practice. The initiative’s success […]
Evaluation of the Responsible, Engaged, and Loving (REAL) Fathers Initiative on Physical Child Punishment and Intimate Partner Violence in Northern Uganda
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The REAL Fathers Initiative demonstrates that targeting social norms around masculinity, fatherhood, and discipline through mentoring can significantly reduce intimate partner violence and physical child punishment. The intervention worked by addressing norms that justify violence in parenting and relationships, encouraging reflection on gender roles and expanding the perceived responsibilities of fathers. […]
You must first save her life’: Community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Despite restrictive legal, structural, and socio-normative contexts in the DRC, this study highlights community attitudes toward abortion as multifaceted rather than wholly condemnatory. While abortion stigma is widespread—rooted in moral, religious, and gendered ideals about womanhood and motherhood—community discussions revealed empathy for women who induce abortions in specific contexts, such as […]
Adolescent pregnancy and social norms in Zambia
Key Social Norms Take-aways: The study highlights the contradiction between restrictive norms (expecting abstinence) and permissive practices (pressuring girls into relationships for material needs). It underscores that changing adolescent pregnancy rates requires shifting harmful community-level norms, improving communication about sexuality, and promoting supportive environments where girls can access contraception without stigma. Objectives: This study aimed […]
Norms and sexual relations among adolescents in the context of an intervention trial in rural Zambia.
Key Social Norms Take-aways: Adolescents in rural Zambia face conflicting social norms: strong disapproval (injunctive norms) of premarital sex, contraceptive use, and open conversations about sexuality, alongside a widespread (descriptive) norm of transactional sex driven by poverty and peer influence. The RISE intervention reinforced abstinence messaging but failed to shift the restrictive norms that limit […]