Advocacy

Advances an audience’s belief that a proposed action is good, effective, and useful to address an issue/problem, for example, more government funds for improved access to safe drinking water or supportive policies for changes to septage programs.

Audience

Group, whose attitudes, behaviors, or practices, is to bemodified.

Behavior

Habitual actions taken by an individual in the course of his/her daily routine.

Behavior Analysis

Planned and consistent observation of a target audience’s behaviors and practices. Behavior analysis is systematically observing the practice of an action and clarifying and explaining that action with regard to a desired outcome. It helps us to (1) gather information about the current behavior of our audience regarding our specific problem, (2) define the feasible behavior we want to promote, including understanding the conditions/factors necessary to ensure that our audience will adopt the promoted behavior, and (3) determine and provide our audience with the necessary conditions/skills to adopt the behavior.

Behavior Change

Convincing a target audience to adopt and replace current behaviors with feasible, new/adapted behaviors.

Behavior Change Communication

Builds a target audience’s conviction that an action is the "best choice for him/her" and motivates him/her to "try" it and adopt it.

Catalyzing

Prompting, motivating, or inspiring behavior change through program activities.

Change

Replacement of a target audience’s attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and/or practices with new, different attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, and/or practices.

Channel

Local outlets, such as media, organizations, and individuals, used to disseminate target messages.

Current Behavior

Behaviors actually engaged in by a target audience.  This behavior corresponds to what the audience is doing at the time of the research. 

Customers

“Customer” is used throughout as a generic term for any/all of these – clients, beneficiaries, citizens, customers.

Enabling Environment

Conditions that promote change and support and provide information, resources, and services that help the target audience sustain those changes.

Feasible Behavior

Behaviors a target audience can realistically be expected to adopt—based on local resources and pre-existing attitudes and practices—after a promotion program.  After careful analysis of the current behavior, we can propose specific changes that are in accordance with what the audience will find acceptable and feels they are capable of doing.

Housing Types

There are three housing types: (1) formal - planned with city services available and good access through tarmac; (2) traditional - planned with limited services and limited access through tarmac; and (3) informal - no planning, sometimes illegal, no access, and no tarmac.

Hygiene Practices

Practices involving handwashing, clean and proper use of latrine facilities, and use of safe drinking water practices, just to name a few.

Ideal Behavior

Behaviors that would generate the best results for the target audience.

Information and Education

Increases a target audience’s awareness, understanding and knowledge about the facts on a particular issue/problem.

Infrastructure

Resources, services, and utilities that provide the foundation for community maintenance and growth.

Media

Communication outlets in a region used to disseminate information to inhabitants of that region.

Mobilization

Allows target audience members to express how they feel about performing the action, to discuss it with other community members, and to discuss how they will continue or start to practice the action.

Practices

Habitual actions shared by a community and based on traditions, beliefs, and resources in a given region.

Product

Products encompass any item that might be used to promote a behavior or be used in a service, such as a bar of soap, a basin, a plastic water main pipe.

Promotion

Disseminating target messages and encouraging target behaviors in a target audience, which are evidence-based and behavior-focused.

Research Instruments or Tools

Collection of questionnaires, topic guides, surveys, or observation checklist, for example, used to collect data for design, monitoring and/or evaluation.

Sanitation Marketing

Use of social marketing and communication techniques to bring about change in community and individual sanitation practices.

Social Marketing

Persuades a target audience that a proposed action is the “best choice for him/her” and prompts him/her to “try” it and adopt it.

Target audience

The consumer, client, customer, beneficiary of research and of a promotion effort.  For research, the target audience is generally broader.  For a promotion effort, the target audience is specifically defined and segmented.

Training

Training strengthens a target audience’s ability to perform an action.  It includes organized dissemination of information and skills.