USAID Advancing Nutrition develops, curates, packages, and shares multi-sectoral nutrition knowledge to help you stay on top of developments and evidence in global nutrition programming.
Social and Behavior Change and GenderGender Equality and Women’s EmpowermentGender
Gender equality and women’s empowerment are fundamental rights that are key to achieving sustained nutrition outcomes. Recognizing these facts, USAID Advancing Nutrition developed a project-wide strategy to help integrate gender into the project's work.
A Learning and Sharing “Café”: IYCF Programming Adaptations in the Context of COVID-19 – Second Cafe
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingCOVID-19Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)
This platform encourages countries to share lessons learned and experiences with adapting infant and young child feeding (IYCF) programs during COVID-19. It provides videos on breastfeeding and complementary feeding, social media content on IYCF, a detailed review of counseling packages for IYCF, and materials focusing on feeding when COVID is suspected or confirmed.
Managing Nutrition Myths and Misconceptions During COVID-19: Technical Brief
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingCOVID-19
Misinformation has led to unnecessary separation of infants and mothers with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection during delivery and breastfeeding. It has also led to mistrust of the health care system, delayed care-seeking of nutrition services, and limited uptake of COVID-19 preventive practices.
Make Me a Change Agent: An SBC Resource for WASH, Agriculture, and Livelihoods Activities
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderEconomic GrowthWater, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
This guide focuses on training frontline workers to promote behavior change related to water, sanitation, and hygiene, agriculture, and livelihoods. The highly participatory training includes lessons on effective communication, facilitation, negotiation, social and behavior change, action planning, quality improvement, and giving and receiving feedback.
Guidance on SBC for Nutrition During COVID-19: Technical Brief
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderCOVID-19Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)
Practitioners must find new ways to engage families and communities while following physical distancing guidelines and may need to adapt messaging and calls to action to acknowledge the reality of people’s daily lives.
Men's Nutrition Knowledge is Important for Women's and Children's Nutrition in Ethiopia
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderMaternal NutritionNutrition Assessment, Counseling, and Support (NACS)
Men's nutrition knowledge has significant, positive, and additive associations with households', children's, and women's dietary diversity. Research exploring how nutrition knowledge is gendered and how to engage men in programming may lead to better nutrition outcomes.
Gender Accommodative Versus Transformative Approaches: A Comparative Assessment within a Post-Harvest Fish Loss Reduction Intervention
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and Gender
A gender transformative approach encourages critical awareness of gender norms, challenges gender-based work and resource allocations, and addresses power relationships between women and others in the community. It encourages women and men to jointly identify shifts in norms or behaviors they would like to see and provides space to test new ways of engaging.
Food SystemsSocial and Behavior Change and GenderFood Security
Digital technologies to increase sustainable healthy diets and progressively realize the right to adequate food are powerful but may also have adverse impacts.
Social Norms and Child Feeding Practices: What Do We Know? Webinar
-
Social and Behavior Change and GenderGender Equality and Women’s Empowerment
Social norms—the unstated rules that govern behavior in society and determine what is acceptable or taboo—are one of many influences on child feeding behaviors. Norms often specify what young children should eat, as well as how, when, and by whom young children should be fed.
Managing Nutrition Myths and Misconceptions During COVID-19
Publication Date:
Knowledge ManagementSocial and Behavior Change and Gender
This short guide covers social and behavior change strategies for combatting misinformation and supporting programs in responding to COVID-19 related misinformation that affects nutrition.
Foreword: Global Nutrition Report in the Context of COVID-19
Publication Date:
Early Childhood DevelopmentNutrition in Humanitarian ContextsFood SystemsKnowledge ManagementMonitoring, Evaluation, and LearningNutrition and Health SystemsSocial and Behavior Change and GenderCOVID-19Economic GrowthFood SecurityResilience
Inequality is a critical driver of malnutrition, particularly in the context of the global pandemic. COVID-19 disproportionally affects undernourished populations, reveals healthcare inequalities, and places additional stress on already vulnerable food systems.
When Separation is Not the Answer: Breastfeeding Mothers and Infants Affected by COVID‐19
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingCOVID-19
Although the World Health Organization has provided comprehensive guidance that promotes continued breastfeeding during COVID-19, this article argues countries that have imposed separation and discouraged or prohibited breastfeeding or provision of expressed breastmilk fail to acknowledge the health and psychological impacts of separation.
Mixed-Methods Systematic Review of Behavioral Interventions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries to Increase Family Support for Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition during the First 1000 Days
Publication Date:
Nutrition and Health SystemsSocial and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal Nutrition
Research that draws causal inference, estimates the magnitude of impact, and identifies scalable behavioral interventions that engage fathers, grandmothers, and other family members to support mothers of infants and young children is limited.
Social Circumstances and Cultural Beliefs Influence Maternal Nutrition, Breastfeeding and Child Feeding Practices in South Africa
Publication Date:
Nutrition in Humanitarian ContextsSocial and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal Nutrition
There is a gap between knowledge and practices related to maternal dietary diversity, breastfeeding, and infant and young child feeding. Lack of income, dependence on food purchasing, young mothers' feelings about breastfeeding, and cultural beliefs were drivers of this gap.
Social and Behavior Change and GenderWastingBreastfeeding
This tool provides a framework for identifying individual, social, and structural factors that support or hinder continued breastfeeding through age two. Acknowledging the importance of external forces on continued breastfeeding, the tool guides the identification of supportive actions required by policymakers and others and facilitates thinking about possible program strategies.
Guidance On SBC For Nutrition During Covid-19: Technical Brief
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderAdolescent NutritionBreastfeedingCOVID-19Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Maternal Nutrition
This short guide includes important considerations, messaging, and resources to support country programs in adapting nutrition Social and Behavior Change (SBC) programming in response to the challenges presented by COVID-19.
Social and Behavior Change for Nutrition During COVID-19 Webinar
-
Social and Behavior Change and Gender
The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have an indirect, yet severe and lasting, effect on maternal and child nutrition. Weakened and overwhelmed health systems can mean reduced access to and utilization of nutrition services.
Steps for Adapting Graphics and Recommended Practices from Infant and Young Child Feeding Recommendations When COVID-19 Is Suspected or Confirmed
Publication Date:
Social and Behavior Change and GenderBreastfeedingCOVID-19Emergency NutritionInfant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN)Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
This guide provides practical steps for any national team or organization interested in adapting the graphics and recommended practices found in the counselling package, Infant and Young Child Feeding Recommendations When COVID-19 is Suspected or Confirmed.
Social and Behavior Change and GenderGender Equality and Women’s EmpowermentGender
The gender equality strategy guides USAID Advancing Nutrition--including technical sectors and country programs--to integrate gender into program activities to the fullest extent possible. The strategy is informed by a global literature review of gender's impact on nutrition and an analysis of gender-based considerations for the project's planned activities.