Senior Implementation Science Advisor, Breakthrough RESEARCH
Ms. Dougherty is a public health expert with over 20 years of experience in research, management and technical assistance. Ms. Dougherty’s research focuses on informing demand creation strategies for public health products and services and monitoring and evaluating social and behavior change approaches in sub-Saharan Africa. She is the Senior Implementation Science Advisor for Breakthrough RESEARCH, a global initiative focused on generating evidence and promoting its use to strengthen SBC programming for improved health and development outcomes.
Family planning programs are often faced with the challenge of transferring knowledge into behavior. A growing body of evidence suggests that social and behavior change (SBC) interventions improve family planning/reproductive health outcomes by directly increasing contraceptive uptake or increasing contraceptive use through pathways that address intermediate determinants such as attitudes around family planning.
En contribuant à un programme mondial de recherche et d'apprentissage sur la programmation intégrée de la CSC, Breakthrough RESEARCH, le projet phare de l'USAID sur la génération de preuves de la CSC, aide à générer des données pour améliorer cette approche importante.
Breakthrough RESEARCH shares the importance of collecting behavioral determinant data to inform family planning social and behavior change (SBC) programs and policies.
Breakthrough ACTION crée, teste et applique à grande échelle de nouvelles approches hybrides du CSC en se fondant sur ses recherches novatrices, mais aussi sur son évaluation de programmes et de stratégies de CSC rentables éprouvés. Ensemble, ces projets jumeaux financés par l’USAID tirent parti des pratiques et des données relatives au CSC pour encourager les comportements sanitaires prioritaires et obtenir de meilleurs résultats de santé et de développement.
Breakthrough ACTION develops, tests, and scales up new and hybrid approaches to SBC, informed by Breakthrough RESEARCH’s cutting-edge research and evaluation of proven, cost-effective SBC strategies and programs. Together, these USAID-funded sister projects are harnessing SBC evidence and practice to increase priority health behaviors for improved health and development outcomes.
Social media has increasingly become one of the most popular places for individuals to express their views and engage in conversations about what they see, hear, and believe. There are currently 3.4 billion social media users, a figure projected to increase to 4.4 billion by 2025. This growing popularity means that social media can also be an important resource for gathering information about reproductive health and voluntary family planning.
Social and behavior change (SBC) approaches can increase the use of modern contraceptives by addressing the attitudes and social norms that influence demand. However, they often do not receive attention, partly because many practitioners are not effectively measuring their SBC efforts. Breakthrough ACTION interviewed voluntary family planning stakeholders in West Africa to learn why.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and listen in on honest conversations with family planning program experts around the world as they share what has worked in their settings — and what to avoid — in our podcast series, Inside the FP Story.
Click on the image above to visit the podcast page or on your preferred provider below to listen to Inside the FP Story.
Knowledge SUCCESS is a five-year global project led by a consortium of partners and funded by USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health to support learning, and create opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange, within the family planning and reproductive health community.
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This website is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Knowledge SUCCESS (Strengthening Use, Capacity, Collaboration, Exchange, Synthesis, and Sharing) Project. Knowledge SUCCESS is supported by USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, Office of Population and Reproductive Health and led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (CCP) in partnership with Amref Health Africa, The Busara Center for Behavioral Economics (Busara), and FHI 360. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of CCP. The information provided on this website does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the United States Government, or the Johns Hopkins University. Read our full Security, Privacy, and Copyright Policies.