There’s no question that 2025 has been an incredibly challenging year for those of us working in social and behavior change and public health.
Across the globe, CCP teams and partners have navigated shrinking resources, shifting priorities and an ever-evolving information environment, making our work both more urgent and more complicated.
It was a year that few of us expected. It pushed us to listen more closely, adapt more quickly and stay connected to the communities we serve, even when the way forward felt uncertain. Staff cuts meant saying goodbye (hopefully temporarily) to treasured colleagues as many of us felt the strain of a global health workforce that looked very different from what it had been just months before.
And yet, amid the difficulty, 2025 sharpened our sense of purpose. It reminded us why good communication can change lives and why evidence, creativity and care are at the heart of everything we do at CCP.
Here are five lessons CCP will carry into 2026:
- Trust Remains the Foundation of Social and Behavior Change
This year reaffirmed a truth we’ve always known: Trust takes time, and without it, change cannot take root. Trust grows through consistency, shared experience and real connection. And our work is strongest when messages come from voices people already believe in.
We’ve long understood that social norms can be shaped by misinformation, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of cultural and religious practices. In Somalia this year, CCP’s work on the IPPF-led WISH2 project included partnering with religious leaders and other community influencers to support conversations about child spacing and family well-being, especially among young adults. Our collective efforts showed how trust and tradition can work hand-in-hand with public health.
Trust also hinges on building relationships long before a crisis. Fifteen years ago, during Baltimore’s infant mortality crisis, CCP helped launch B’more for Healthy Babies, combining data with powerful personal stories – including from parents who had lost children due to unsafe sleep – to bring mortality rates to historic lows.
This community-rooted trust model which continues to this day as CCP, in 2025, helped tackle rising syphilis rates, convened conversations about the health and well-being of Black men and boys and was honored by the mayor for its vaccine outreach work during the COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts remind us that trust is earned long before it’s needed.
- Storytelling Is Still Our Most Powerful Tool
Data helps people understand “what is happening.” Stories help them understand “why it matters.”
This year, we saw again and again how authentic stories – whether from community leaders, digital influencers, youth groups or health workers – cut through noise, misinformation and fatigue in ways facts alone cannot.
CCP has used entertainment-education for decades, from working with pop music artists in the 1980s to promote family planning to producing “Strange Market,” a spy-thriller web series viewed by hundreds of thousands this year. Audiences tuned in for the drama but walked away with knowledge about zoonotic diseases.
We also continued our partnership with the Social Impact Entertainment Society to host the annual Impact + Profit Conference in Los Angeles, bringing together producers, researchers and storytellers to explore how narrative can drive impact.
Storytelling works because it is relatable, emotional and human. When people see themselves in a story, they are far more open to new ideas and more willing to take action.
- Knowledge – Collected, Curated and Shared – Is a Global Public Good
CCP has always been trusted to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. Our expertise in translating complex evidence into accessible, practical knowledge remains one of our greatest strengths. In a year defined by information overload, misinformation and shifting health priorities, this work became even more essential.
In 2025, CCP continued to steward core global resources such as ITNuse.org and the Global Health: Science and Practice Journal, while releasing new behavioral data, sharing candid reflections on decades of knowledge management work, and expanding SBC Learning Central to train the next generation of social and behavior change practitioners.
This year underscored that producing evidence is not enough. We must keep it alive, making it accessible, relevant and ready to inform programs and policies around the world.
- Communities Have the Answers. Our Job Is to Ask Better Questions.
Human-centered design has become CCP’s “special sauce” because it ensures that communities guide both the questions and the solutions. The days of top-down solutions are gone. Real impact happens when people co-create the tools and messages meant to serve themselves and their communities.
This year in Ethiopia, CCP co-created radio stories with communities that modeled healthy, gender-equitable relationships and encouraged couples to honestly discuss prenatal care, birth preparedness and delivering at health facilities. Research showed these stories helped improve maternal health outcomes, not because they instructed but because they resonated.
In the United States, CCP collaborated with Johns Hopkins Medicine to raise awareness about salpingectomy – a proven ovarian cancer prevention strategy used for two decades yet still unfamiliar to most women and even many clinicians. To craft meaningful messages, we are listening closely to women and families about what they know, fear and hope for.
In every setting, it is clear that communities are not just participants. They are our partners and when they lead, solutions are stronger, more relevant and more sustainable.
- SBC Is More Relevant Than Ever
If 2025 made anything clear, it’s that social and behavior change is not a “nice to have.” It is essential.
From malaria prevention to maternal health, climate resilience, misinformation and vaccine confidence, progress depends on what people believe, understand and choose and on systems that support them.
This is why CCP is proud to co-chair the 2026 International Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit, to be held June 22–26 in Panama City, Panama. For the first time, the Summit will be held in the Latin American and Caribbean region. Nearly 2,000 abstracts have been submitted on topics ranging from public health to climate action to economic well-being and equity across seven different presentation formats.
We look forward to welcoming researchers, practitioners, donors and policymakers from every region, discipline and generation who recognize the transformational power of communication. (Registration is open.)
Looking Ahead to 2026
Predicting the future has never been harder. But our commitments remain the same.
As we move into 2026, we carry with us the lessons of this year: listen deeply, trust communities, protect and share knowledge and lean on storytelling to break through the noise, and center people in every solution.
We move forward determined to strengthen partnerships, amplify essential voices and support the systems that make healthier, more just societies possible.
2025 tested us. It also reminded us who we are – and why this work matters.
Debora B. Freitas López is the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
