Provider Behavior Change

South Sudan Provider Behavior Change Toolkit

Providers’ interactions with clients can influence health-seeking behavior, including family planning (FP). Thus, it is critical to understand both what influences provider behavior and how to encourage and support provider behaviors that help clients achieve their reproductive intentions or fertility desires. 

Providers operate in complex systems that directly and indirectly impact who they are and how they act. Provider behavior results from a complex web of interrelated internal (e.g., knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, values, and preferences) and external (e.g., social norms, medical education and training, professional development, workplace environment, and health care financing and resources) factors. Designing impactful, scalable, and sustainable interventions requires a contextual understanding of providers and the people who interact with them.

This toolkit builds on the Provider Behavior Ecosystem Map developed by Breakthrough ACTION in 2020. This thinking tool aims to help users understand and consider diverse factors that influence facility-based provider behavior and how these factors interact. Users can then design or adjust provider behavior change (PBC) initiatives based on their understanding of these influences.

The tool allows the user to observe the complex network of factors, including critical linkages, in a comprehensive and holistic way. Although it focuses primarily on factors that influence facility-based providers working in FP and reproductive health, it can be applied across health areas.