Recall Health Education Messages

Outcome

Number and percent of community members who can recall target health education messages

Health education activities help community members understand how to maintain their health and prevent illness. They ensure that community members understand the importance of health actions and how to maintain them after the project ends. Measuring the number and percent of community members who can remember key health messages indicates whether the education was effective and helps improve future activities.

Collect the data through a population or beneficiary-based survey.

Survey question can be measured in two ways:
Free recall: Ask an open-ended question without prompts to see if community members remember the message on their own.

• Sample question: "Have you seen or heard any recent health messages that were provided to the community? If so, what do you remember about them?"

Aided recall: Provide cues to jog the memory, such as showing campaign materials (posters, IEC materials, etc.) or mentioning the message's slogan.

• Sample question: "Do you recall seeing a poster with messages about preventing/treating/health-seeking behavior [insert disease or health issue]? What do you remember about it?" 

How to analyze:

The count of individual beneficiaries who can recall health education messages.

The percent is derived by dividing the number of individual beneficiaries within the catchment area surveyed who can explain particular and specific disease prevention/treatment/health-seeking behaviors when asked by the total number of individual beneficiaries within the catchment area of the activity surveyed.

Numerator:  Number of individual beneficiaries within the catchment area surveyed who can explain particular and specific disease prevention/treatment/health-seeking behaviors when asked
Denominator:  Total number of individual beneficiaries within the catchment area of the activity surveyed.

Who Collects:  Implementing staff or enumerators

From Whom:  Individuals living in the intervention area. The target population group for specific messaging and quantitative surveys should be precisely defined to ensure statistically-valid and relevant results.

Frequency of Collection:  Data will be collected at baseline and at endline.

Baseline Value Information:  Baseline value will be derived from the baseline data collection (pre-intervention) survey of initial knowledge or adequate percent of skills/learning objectives from individual beneficiaries immediately after training.

Sex: female, male

This is a BHA/USAID indicator (H15).

Community members:  Individuals living within the intervention catchment area.

Recall:  May include spontaneous mention and/or aided recall, as per individual beneficiaries' response to predefined questions in standardized questionnaires.

Target health education message:  Information specific to particular disease prevention/treatment or health seeking behaviors that are provided to the community.

Projects should clearly identify the specific message, recall criteria (i.e., respondents correctly identify two or more messages), and target group in their report.