Fighting Malaria with Social and Behavior Change

Fighting Malaria with Social and Behavior Change is a five-year, $17 million project funded by USAID to use social and behavior change (SBC) to prevent malaria and improve treatment in Mozambique.

As part of the project, CCP is working with two local organizations – h2n, which has extensive community radio networks in the country, and Tchova-Tchova Association for Community Programs, a member of CCP’s global network – as well as the government of Mozambique. Drawing from its extensive evidence base, CCP hopes to strengthen the abilities of Mozambicans to promote healthy behaviors, organize communities to effectively analyze and use data to design and evaluate SBC interventions.

Despite large reductions at the beginning of the 21st century, there were still an estimated 241 million malaria cases and 627,000 deaths in 2020, mostly in children in sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly 23,700 Mozambicans died from malaria in 2020.

CCP is working to coordinate actions among governments at all levels – national, provincial and district – to enable more regular collaboration across the National Malaria Control Program and provide more frequent data to improve the ability to adapt and improve programs throughout the year based on evidence. In locations where bed net use is sub-optimal, CCP will work with partners to create campaigns to boost the numbers.

Among the goals: Encourage more net use, early care-seeking for fevers, use of IPTp (a preventive treatment for pregnant women), malaria testing and following through on finishing prescribed medication regimens. All of the activities are being conducted through a human-centered design lens to ensure that the people most susceptible to malaria drive the work in Mozambique.