Transforming Lives through Social and Behavioural Change Communication

How do entire societies shift away from harmful practices – open defecation, child marriage, or vaccine hesitancy – and adopt new, healthier ones? The answer is rarely a single poster, a government decree, or a one-time awareness campaign. Real, lasting social transformation is driven by a carefully designed process called Social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC). It is a field that has evolved considerably over decades, moving from simply broadcasting information to building genuine dialogue between communities, practitioners, and policymakers. Understanding SBCC – what it is, where it came from, and what role it plays – is essential for anyone working in development, public health, or communication today.

Defining SBCC: more than just a message 🔗

According to a widely used definition, Social and Behavioural Change Communication is an interactive process of working with individuals, groups, and communities – as part of an overall programme – to develop communication strategies that promote positive behaviours appropriate to their settings. The ultimate aim is to create a supportive environment that enables people to initiate, sustain, and maintain desirable behavioural outcomes.

Put more simply: SBCC uses communication strategies grounded in behavioural science to positively influence knowledge, attitudes, and social norms among individuals, institutions, and communities. It is not advertising. It is not propaganda. It is a systematic, research-driven, and consultative process that recognises the full complexity of human behaviour – and designs interventions accordingly.

A key point here is what SBCC is not. It does not operate on the assumption that giving people information is enough to change what they do. As development practitioners have learned through decades of experience, there is a significant gap between knowing and doing. A mother may know that breastfeeding is beneficial, but if her mother-in-law insists on formula, or if her workplace offers no private space, knowledge alone will not change the outcome. SBCC addresses this gap by working on multiple levels simultaneously.

Where it all began: the IEC model 🔗

To understand SBCC fully, it helps to trace its origins. For much of the 20th century, governments and development agencies relied on a model called Information, Education, and Communication (IEC). The logic was straightforward: IEC aimed to inform people about important issues, educate them on solutions, and encourage them to adopt positive behaviours. Campaigns like “Don’t Smoke,” “Use a mosquito net,” or “Wash your hands before eating” were classic IEC interventions – one-way messages crafted by experts and broadcast to large audiences through mass media.

IEC was not without value. It successfully raised public awareness on many issues. But it had a critical limitation: it treated people as passive recipients of information rather than active participants in their own lives. It did not account for the powerful role of social norms, cultural beliefs, economic constraints, or the interpersonal relationships that shape how people actually make decisions. A person might hear a message a hundred times and still not change their behaviour, not because they are ignorant, but because the social and structural environment around them makes change difficult or even impossible.

The next step: Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) 🔗

Recognising the limits of the information-only approach, development practitioners moved towards Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) – a more targeted model that emerged as a significant refinement in the field. Where IEC sought awareness, BCC sought measurable action. Modern SBCC’s intellectual roots can be traced to a series of behavioural theories that gained traction in academic circles through the 1980s, including the Theory of Reasoned Action, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory.

BCC introduced two-way communication into the equation. Instead of simply broadcasting messages, practitioners began engaging with communities – listening to their specific barriers, concerns, and motivations. The goal shifted from generic awareness to targeting specific behaviours in specific populations. If IEC told everyone to “get vaccinated,” BCC would ask: why are people in this particular district not vaccinating their children, and what specific message or interaction would address that reason?

BCC was a genuine improvement. But it still had a fundamental gap: it focused primarily on the individual as the unit of change. It worked to alter personal attitudes and skills, but largely overlooked the social environment – the norms, power dynamics, cultural systems, and structural inequalities – within which those individuals lived. This is where the critical leap to SBCC was made.

The big shift: from BCC to SBCC 🔗

As the field of BCC evolved, it placed greater emphasis on the socio-ecological context that grounds individual behaviours, leading to the preference for using the term SBCC. The “S” – for Social – is the most important addition. It signals a fundamental recognition: no one makes decisions in a vacuum. Every individual is embedded in layers of social influence – their family, community, cultural traditions, and the broader structural realities of law, policy, and economics.

SBCC is a process of interactively communicating with individuals, institutions, communities, and societies as part of an overall programme of information dissemination, motivation, problem-solving, and planning. The critical word is interactively. SBCC is not a lecture; it is a conversation.

This shift also meant a change in what SBCC targets. In addition to individual behaviour, SBCC explicitly works to challenge and reshape harmful social norms – the unwritten rules that govern community life. Consider these examples:

• The norm that domestic violence is a private, family matter – SBCC works to reframe it as a community and legal concern.
• The norm that girls do not need secondary education – SBCC works to build a new norm where educating girls is seen as an investment for the whole community.
• The stigma that mental health struggles reflect personal weakness – SBCC works to normalise help-seeking behaviour.

When the social norm changes, individual change becomes far easier. The pressure to conform – which so often works against healthy behaviours – can be redirected to work for them.

SBCC as a research-based, consultative process 🔗

SBCC uses science and data as well as creative approaches, and programmes are designed on the basis of existing data, following a systematic process. This process begins with formative research – a critical phase where practitioners go into communities to listen before they speak. Surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and community observations are used to understand what people know, believe, and feel; what the real barriers to change are; who they trust; and what media they consume.

This “listening first” philosophy is what separates SBCC from older communication models. Instead of designing a campaign for a community, SBCC designs it with them. The process typically follows a cyclical path:

• Analysis: Formative research to understand the target audience and context.
• Strategic design: Setting clear, measurable objectives and identifying key audiences.
• Development and pre-testing: Creating draft materials and testing them with the target group before full rollout.
• Implementation: Deploying the refined campaign across multiple channels.
• Monitoring and evaluation: Continuously tracking reach, comprehension, and behavioural outcomes – and feeding findings back into the next cycle.

All development goals and government priorities require behavioural and social change, and this requires an enabling environment of institutions that understand, support, and implement evidence-based, gender-responsive SBCC. This consultative, cyclical nature is what makes SBCC a genuinely adaptive process – one that can course-correct when messages are not landing or when community realities shift.

The socio-ecological model: understanding the layers of influence 🔗

At the heart of SBCC theory is the Socio-Ecological Model, which visualises behaviour as the product of multiple, nested layers of influence. Rather than seeing a person’s choices as purely individual decisions, this model maps out the full web of factors that shape those choices.

The layers typically include:

• Individual level: A person’s own knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and skills. For example, does a young woman know the health risks of early marriage? Does she feel confident enough to discuss the issue with her parents?
• Interpersonal level: The influence of family, friends, and peers. A husband’s attitudes towards contraception, for instance, can entirely override a woman’s own intentions.
• Community level: The social norms, traditions, religious teachings, and leadership structures of a village or neighbourhood.
• Structural/policy level: The laws, healthcare infrastructure, economic systems, and government policies that either enable or hinder behaviour change.

An IEC campaign would typically operate only at the first level – providing information to individuals. Effective SBCC interventions should aim to develop messages and activities that influence all four levels of the Socio-Ecological Model, maximising the facilitators of change and limiting the barriers. This is a considerably more ambitious – and more effective – undertaking.

The role of participatory communication in SBCC 🔗

Participatory communication is not a technique within SBCC – it is its philosophical foundation. The shift from top-down “telling” to bottom-up “listening and co-creating” represents the most transformative aspect of the SBCC approach. Communities are not simply audiences to be reached; they are partners in diagnosing problems and designing solutions.

This participation takes many forms in practice: community dialogues where residents collectively discuss local health or social challenges; engagement of religious leaders and village elders as communication champions; peer educator programmes where trusted community members carry messages to their neighbours; and participatory rural communication appraisals where communities map their own needs and communication environments.

The power of participation is that it generates ownership. When a community arrives at a solution through its own dialogue – rather than receiving instructions from an outside expert – its members are far more likely to sustain that change over time. Community mobilisation and ownership is important for interpersonal communication and community participatory approaches, involving parents, caregivers, local community leaders, and traditional leaders. Equally, involving target groups in the development of content and messaging – informed by formative research – is consistently shown to improve the relevance and reception of SBCC interventions.

SBCC in action: a multi-channel, multi-level approach 🔗

SBCC uses a variety of communication channels to drive and sustain positive behaviour among individuals, communities, and societies. No single channel is sufficient. Effective SBCC operates like a “surround-sound” system, where consistent messages reach people through multiple reinforcing points of contact:

• Mass media (television dramas, radio programmes, social media campaigns) builds broad public awareness and normalises discussion of sensitive topics.
• Interpersonal communication (community health workers, peer educators, counselling sessions) addresses individual concerns, misconceptions, and barriers in a personal, trusted context.
• Community mobilisation (village meetings, street theatre, faith-based events) generates collective dialogue and shifts local social norms.
• Digital and mobile platforms (WhatsApp groups, mobile health applications) enable real-time engagement, especially with younger audiences.
• Advocacy targets the structural and policy level, working with governments and institutions to create an enabling environment where positive behaviours are supported by law and infrastructure.

A telling real-world example of SBCC’s multimedia power comes from Ethiopia. The Maternal and Newborn Health in Ethiopia Partnership (MaNHEP) produced a video in Amharic and Afan-Oromo portraying two fictional families dealing with childbirth in distinct ways – one that used all available health resources and one that did not. Researchers found a statistically significant improvement in message retention among those who viewed the video, and community members confirmed that the local language and culturally familiar scenarios made the content relatable and credible. The video also proved effective in overcoming literacy barriers in rural communities.

The role of SBCC in addressing socio-cultural, economic, and political contexts 🔗

One of SBCC’s defining strengths is its sensitivity to context. There is, as practitioners often note, no one-size-fits-all strategy for behaviour change. An approach that works in an urban, literate community in South Asia may be entirely inappropriate for a rural, oral community in sub-Saharan Africa. The socio-cultural, economic, and political environment shapes what messages are credible, which messengers are trusted, and what channels are accessible.

UNICEF’s Communication for Development (C4D) framework in India, for example, encompasses strategies ranging from system strengthening and capacity development to building social capital and generating evidence on gender norms – all calibrated to India’s specific socio-cultural and political context. Similarly, C4D aims to influence the abandonment of harmful social norms and the adoption of positive norms, facilitating diverse forms of engagement at scale in both development and emergency contexts.

Critically, SBCC also has a role in political and policy advocacy. It is not only about changing what communities do – it is also about changing the systems that constrain them. By giving communities a voice to articulate their needs, SBCC enables citizens to engage with policymakers, demand better services, and hold institutions accountable. In this sense, SBCC is also a tool for empowerment and social justice.

Limitations and the need for holistic programming 🔗

It is important to be honest about what SBCC cannot do alone. Complex challenges such as child marriage, female genital mutilation, and the sexual abuse of children and adolescents all have deep roots. Even the most robust communication campaign cannot overpower deeply entrenched norms and belief systems that are reflected in legal systems, job markets, and socialisation processes. SBCC, when reduced to mere messaging or used simply to share information without addressing structural barriers, frequently falls short.

The honest conclusion of decades of practice is this: SBCC works best as one critical component of a holistic programme – one that combines communication with expanded services, improved access to commodities, trained providers, and structural reforms. Communication without service delivery creates demand that cannot be met. Service delivery without communication creates supply that no one accesses. Both are necessary.

What do you think? Consider a persistent social norm in your own community – whether related to health, gender, education, or environment. What do you think would be more effective in shifting it: an information campaign that educates people about why the norm is harmful, or a community dialogue process where people collectively examine and discuss the norm themselves? And what structural changes would need to accompany that communication effort to make lasting change possible?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_and_behavior_change_communication
2. https://www.centreforsbcc.org/what-is-sbcc/
3. https://sbccimplementationkits.org/sbcc-in-emergencies/learn-about-sbcc-and-emergencies/what-is-social-and-behavior-change-communication/
4. https://illuminaid.org/blog/whatissocialandbehaviorchange
5. https://sbccimplementationkits.org/courses/designing-a-social-and-behavior-change-communication-strategy/
6. https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/communication-for-development
7. https://gsdrc.org/publications/social-and-behaviour-change-communication-interventions-in-mozambique/
8. https://www.illuminaid.org/blog/whatissocialandbehaviorchange