We have published our second brief synthesizing insights relevant to the ongoing COVID-19 response, this one based on the two immersion studies conducted by our team in Uganda. Like the Indonesia brief, we have highlighted key relevant findings along with the implications for COVID-19 programming and policies in Uganda.

The studies in Uganda were conducted in 2017 and involved training a team of enthusiastic Ugandan researchers who lived with 50 families across 15 different districts in northern, eastern, and central Uganda.

Some of the insights include, for example, that i) daily chores such as collecting water are time consuming and as women tend to also handle day-to-day education and health matters, they may be under increased pressure and stress with potential impacts on husband-wife relationships; ii) most people prefer to receive cash assistance rather than in-kind assistance; and iii) most families prefer to sell directly to middlemen that come to the village/their farms because of the convenience which may limit their options during the current COVID crisis.

As one of our studies in Uganda also focused on old people’s experiences with the Uganda Senior Citizen Grants, we have highlighted insights that are particularly relevant for this group as well.

View the full brief here.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to hit low income countries – and specifically the poorest people within these countries – the hardest. Governments, UN Agencies and development programmes need to react both quickly and effectively to prevent the worst from happening. Global public health programmes have taught us that the best health policies and programmes are those which are evidence-based. This has already proven imperative during this crisis, as people are being asked to dramatically alter their daily lives in order to keep themselves and those around them safe.

At Empatika we know that, for example, government messaging through WhatsApp groups and on Facebook is not sufficient to promote behaviour change, even for practices as simple as washing hands. There is ample evidence from our immersion research that such messages are often ignored and that people’s understanding of health, hygiene and cleanliness is needed to support change.

Why do some health behaviour change programmes work and others do not? Our immersion-based research provides insights into people’s everyday lives and allows us to consider what people say and what they do, within their own reality. By living with families in over 75 rural and urban locations in Indonesia, we have gathered insights that can be used to address public health challenges. These details are essential to tailoring messages and approaches to address the drivers of key health behaviours, like hand washing, breast feeding, or health seeking practices.

Social distancing and travel restrictions limit the options available to collect up-to-date information on how people are responding to the pandemic. However, Empatika’s extensive experiential insights gathered over more than six years may help inform responsive interventions. This includes a network of families across Indonesia with whom we have lived and can communicate with remotely to assess behaviour change and community responses to the crisis. We hope to be able to share these insights and their implications to support policy makers and programmes to design the most effective interventions and forms of support possible to help communities get through the pandemic.