Since our inception, the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC) has been dedicated to responding to the most pressing challenges of our time, keeping human behaviour at the forefront. We have endeavoured to pursue an approach that fosters innovation, agency and community to advance behavioural science in India.

The pandemic and the multiple overlapping crises it brought along have tested our collective resilience as a society. As we try to recover and move forward, it is imperative that we design evidence-based interventions and systems geared towards stability. The driving factor behind this agenda is that in a state of uncertainty or crisis, evidence and data can effectively inform decision-making of institutions and individuals alike.

As the rural communities we work with are our most important stakeholders, our focus remains on their healthcare needs. We understood from our previous research that anaemia is a common occurrence among pregnant women and that there has been an increase in its prevalence. In 2018, we partnered with Research Triangle Institute for a diagnostic study to identify behavioural barriers to the uptake of, and adherence to iron and folic acid (IFA) tablets. Based on these barriers, we designed and tested five interventions in a lab-in-the-field experiment in Haryana (2018) and Madhya Pradesh (2019). Two interventions that proved to be effective in increasing the consumption of IFA tablets were a counselling card and a goal-tracking calendar.

We are working on scaling these interventions and finding solutions for anaemia among other affected cohorts. In 2022, the Behavioural Insights Unit of India, NITI Aayog, in partnership with The Curve, conducted a study to understand how to integrate these interventions within the existing Indian health machinery to facilitate their scale-up. The Uttar Pradesh Behavioural Insights

Unit (UP BIU) received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to drive innovation in improving IFA supplement adherence. We will select service providers to design, pilot and evaluate behavioural science interventions in the state to improve IFA supplement uptake and adherence among adolescents and women of reproductive age. A requirement of these interventions is that they must be designed for scale-up through the government system in UP; thus, we are addressing issues of scale-up in the design process.

We also worked on a project to strengthen adherence to early initiation of breastfeeding through a behavioural approach. Our key finding for early initiation of breastfeeding is that to initiate greater compliance with it, we need to focus on ways to make it a supported, normative and planned behaviour. In order to bring about greater adherence to exclusive breastfeeding practices, there is a need to increase the salience of negative consequences of deviations and actively recognise the points of deviations. Since child care, such as breastfeeding, is influenced by household norms, there is a need to shift current household norms and include influential women of the household in counselling.

This experience of conducting research under uncertainty was humbling. Over the course of interactions with our stakeholders, we saw an intimate portraiture of people’s resilience during such times. Through numerous telephonic interviews, the need and drive for the right to health and well-being were resounding. We were able to realise an overarching yet important finding: simple and benign interventions, even during times of crisis, can help people adapt and smoothen information uncertainties.

These crises have yet again underscored the importance of investing in resilient health systems. The CSBC team remains as committed as ever to supporting our communities and stakeholders towards better times.

The Centre for Social and Behaviour Change was established in 2017 with the vision to drive impactful behaviour change interventions for marginalised populations in India. The team uses empirical research to understand human decision-making and generate insights for public policy.