Community-Championed Social Norms Marketing

Amos Kahwa of Damax Solutions Company Ltd. in Tanzania will use human-centered design principles to develop a community-supported, social marketing approach that breaks down misconceptions and psychosocial barriers to immunization in developing countries and thereby increases demand. Research has identified several causes of the current low demand for vaccinations including misconceptions about safety, inadequate knowledge of schedules, and negative experiences at clinics. Current approaches designed to increase demand such as better education and incentives have had a limited effect. As an alternative, they propose to directly target the misperceptions and societal influences and empower the communities to help. They will first consult with community members and local government to gain further insight into the drivers of low demand that will be used to design a prototype package of interventions in collaboration with the local community. They will perform several rounds of testing and refining this package, and they will evaluate its ability to improve perceptions and social norms towards vaccinations and ultimately to improve demand.