ExploreBEHAVIORAL DESIGN for MATERNAL HEALTH

Jhpiego and ThinkPlace collaborated with hundreds of women, their families, providers, and community members in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Mali to explore how we might develop service delivery approaches that provide safe, respectful and valuable experience for women and their health providers. We have compiled this emerging and ongoing work here, in the hopes it may be helpful to others.

THE CHALLENGE

Early entry, continuity, and quality of antenatal and postnatal care all remain priorities for health systems and maternal and newborn health. As part of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded in Antenatal and Postnatal Care Research Collective (ARC), Jhpiego and ThinkPlace worked to generate behavioral insights and prototypes to design and improve ANC and PNC services in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, and Mali. This platform consolidates and shares early learnings from the behavioral design process.

THE HUMANS WE DESIGNED WITH

To uncover deep insights, ThinkPlace engaged with pregnant women in urban and rural settings, with young and old, first-time and experienced mothers, and a large diversity of maternal health care providers (i.e. nurses, midwives, doctors and community health workers) and community members: sisters, parents, mothers-in-law, partners and neighbors.

PROJECTOVERVIEW

Beginning in 2020, a team of ThinkPlace designers, Jhpiego colleagues, and local country research teams worked across four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Mali, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi). Hover over the map to learn more about the activities and check out the resources section for details.

MACRO LEVELINSIGHTS

ThinkPlace and Jhpiego emphasize five rich “macro” insights that reveal challenging maternal healthcare dynamics beyond borders and across the different geographies. These insights are aimed to inspire and encourage designers and practitioners to further investigate different factors that influence the access and uptake of maternal health services.

THE PREGNANCYJOURNEY

Dive in the pregnancy journey to learn more about the emotions and needs of pregnant women and newborn mothers across the different countries.

HCD TOOLKIT ThinkPlace and Jhpiego collaboratively designed and tailored community engagement tools that were used by designers and researchers during the immersive research phase. These tools complement traditional qualitative techniques like in-depth interviews and observations, and involve interactive activities with participants to help uncover information that often is not possible to be collected through dialogue.

MY NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

Health professionals and members of ASACOs describe how they would like to be presented if they were interviewed in the national newspaper.

MY IDEAL EXPERIENCE

An activity in which participants are asked to describe their ideal pregnancy and childbirth, using questions and visual aids.

GOOD ADVICE CORNER

Participants are presented with scenarios related to MCH services (user side and health worker side) in which the character faces a challenge and asks the participants for advice.

FOLLOWING MY EMOTIONS

Participants are given simple images representing several emotional states. Participants are invited to choose the image that best corresponds to their emotional state at the different stages of the maternal healthcare journey.

“In my last pregnancy the midwife hurt me during a vaginal examination. She was rough and didn’t ask me how I was. I lost my trust in midwives. That’s why I haven’t been to the CSCOM in my current pregnancy. I’m scared the midwives will cause me pain again.”

- Pregnant woman in Mali