Eliciting community participation using social and behaviour change tools

Meenai, Z.

The fight against COVID-19 is expected to mobilise the human behavioural aspects like voluntary screening, testing, quarantining as well as wearing a mask, frequent washing of hands, and avoiding/minimising physical and social contact through distancing. However, due to the initial high fatality rate, followed by stigmatisation, discrimination and non-sensitive handling of cases by the government, there is still resistance towards these measures. Getting people to adhere to scientifically validated knowledge on disease prevention and treatment has proved to be challenging. This article focuses on the need to employ the social and behaviour change approach in eliciting community participation, particularly in untested situations. A micro empirical study is presented as an illustration. © 2021 Tata Institute of Social Sciences. All rights reserved.