Positive changes from bystander interventions are reported across behavioral, cognitive and attitudinal measures, including statistically significant decreases in perpetration of violence and increased empathy for survivors.

Health care providers, pregnant woman and families designed simple tools together to address key barriers to facility based childbirth.

Participating households had significantly more assets and savings, spent more time working, went hungry on fewer days, and experienced lower levels of stress and improved physical health.

Findings indicated improved couple communication, including an increase in frequency of couple communication and greater shared decision-making about family planning, which positively influenced contraceptive use and continuation.

Health worker compliance in Bangladesh with recommended counseling practice was significantly associated with exclusive breastfeeding and marginally associated with minimum dietary diversity.

Neonatal mortality reduced by 54% through improvements in birth preparedness, hygienic delivery, thermal care, cord care, skin care and breastfeeding practices.

Health integration into self-help groups demonstrated the positive effects of peer support, networking, and cohesion in achieving increases in newborn care practices among marginalized young mothers. The proportion of women receiving health information from their self-help group members increased significantly in intervention groups.  The net increase for timely initiation of breastfeeding and delayed bathing was 20 percentage points (p<0.05), and age appropriate immunization among children under one year showed a consistent increase over time with a difference-in-difference of 9 percentage points.  

The neonatal mortality rate during this period was 30 per 1000 livebirths in the intervention group and 44 per 1000 livebirths in the control group with an odds ratio of 0.60.  Including this study, a meta-analysis of participatory women’s groups found an overall 22% reduction in neonatal mortality.

Ongoing research (as of June 2018) aims to assess a variety of factors, including changes in knowledge, gaps to emphasize during patient monitoring visits, and assess the increase in health service utilization and request for services to reduce pre-eclampsia and eclampsia.

Using a structured, participant-focused way to diagnose and improve self-efficacy resulted in students reporting much higher feelings of confidence in their ability to learn and master new mathematical challenges, and significantly lower levels of anxiety after the interventions. Students also reported more autonomy and ownership of their own academic process and belief in their future achievements.

Higher exposure to Smart Couple was associated with increased odds of women using any method of contraception almost three-fold and the odds of using a modern method more than two-fold. Consistent with the theory of change, higher exposure resulted in more discussion with a spouse about desired family size, contraceptive use and family planning provider visits.

The evaluation found significant improvements in some behaviors including early initiation of breastfeeding, exclusive breastfeeding, minimum meal frequency and minimum dietary diversity. Results showed a dose-response relationship for dietary diversity, meal frequency and minimum acceptable diet. Health post visits were associated with greater early initiation of breastfeeding while three or more home visits was associated with improved complementary feeding behaviors. Caregivers exposed to four or more communication channels were more likely to achieve a minimum dietary diversity and minimum acceptable diet.

On-site training led to large increases in the number of providers with acceptable levels of knowledge and skills performance in family planning provision. There was also an increase in the number of new voluntary acceptors for family planning without substantial disruption of routine services. 

The approach changed community norms about appropriate care for a pregnant woman and where childbirth should take place, and increased men’s knowledge and beliefs about safe pregnancy and childbirth. The pilot resulted in doubling of the numbers of women who delivered in a health center. The approach was expanded to another 100 communities.

By engaging fathers-to-be through simple, free text messages that provide information, fathers built their own knowledge base and shared the information and reminders with their wives.  Many fathers also took action to help their wives and better care for their child as a couple.

Intensive handwashing promotion led to greater maintenance of handwashing materials in locations where mothers are cocooned with neonate and modest increase in the frequency of handwashing with soap among new mothers during the first 30 days after the birth of their child. Handwashing with soap was significantly higher before breastfeeding and after fecal contact among intervention mothers than among controls.

The proportion of women who reported being “very satisfied” with their delivery experience increased from 12.9% at baseline to 75.8% after the intervention. Women who reported that the level of respectful care they received was “excellent” increased from 0% to 22.8%. Women who rated the quality of care as “excellent” and “very good” increased from 0% to 22.8% and 2.9% to 40.3%, respectively.

Launched in 2014, registrations averaged about 7,334 women per week nationwide, or 39 % of women attending their first antenatal care visits. South Africa is expanding MomConnect to reach nurses and midwives with educational and motivational information, and to provide additional targeted support to mothers living with HIV.

The use and coordination between partners of cash-based programming in the Syrian displacement crisis has improved children’s health and well-being and school attendance. In the future, due to strains from rapid enrollment and funding constraints, research will exam the impacts of removing cash support and information on school attendance.  

Farmers that held more positive attitudes towards sheep management were more likely to have an active management style and had fewer ewes in need of further care at mid-pregnancy and weaning. The findings indicated that farmers’ attitudes toward management practices and perceived behavioral control influenced their decisions. These key attitudes should be addressed in future education strategies aimed at promoting change.

Enhanced counseling among pregnant and breastfeeding women did not have a statistically significant effect on condom use or HIV incidence among these women. However, in both intervention and control arms, condom use increased and STI and HIV incidence remained very low, suggesting that repeat HIV testing during breastfeeding supports prevention behaviors.

Knowledge of danger signs related to pregnancy, delivery, and newborn illness significantly increased in intervention compared to control areas. In addition, the program led to increased utilization of antenatal care and iron-folate supplementation. The findings from this quasi-experimental study demonstrate the ability of civil society organizations with little health programming experience to increase knowledge and promote healthy behaviors among pregnant women and newborns by engaging women’s social network and communities.

The intervention in an urban area decreased sexual assault rates from 18/100 person years at baseline to 11/100 person years after 10 months among adolescent girls who participated, with no significant change in the Standard of Care group. Course participation also led to an increase in the disclosure of assaults enabling survivors to seek greater care and support.

Eight female district councilors and three female parliamentary candidates received direct support from savings groups. Five district councilors representing wards and three parliamentary candidates emerged victorious as a result of the elections.

Through Farmer Nutrition Schools for poor women farmers, women’s dietary diversity score significantly increased from 3.9 to 6.0 out of 10, and was sustained over time.

Compared to women with regular antenatal care, women who attended comprehensive antenatal education had greater self-efficacy and less fear of childbirth, more perceived support and control during birth, and less post-traumatic stress after childbirth.

This meta-analysis revealed that activities increased self-efficacy when they contained at least one of four techniques: 1) action planning, 2) self-monitoring progress, 3) social support and pressure and 4) building the practice into a routine or a schedule. Two of these techniques (monitoring progress and social pressure and support) were also correlated with behavior change. One possible reason for this impact is because these two techniques also addressed other factors like family and community support. These techniques could be applied within any type of communication and mobilization strategy through community, individual or online activities for behaviors influenced by self-efficacy.