Percent of audience who recall hearing or seeing a specific product, practice, or service

Percent of audience who recall hearing or seeing a specific product, practice, or service

Percent of audience who recall hearing or seeing a specific product, practice, or service

The percent of target audience members who report exposure to a particular product, practice, or service. “Audience” is defined as the intended population for the program (e.g., pregnant women for antenatal care or youth in a specific age range for an adolescent program). “Recall” refers to the percentage who can spontaneously name (or recognize when mentioned) a particular practice, product, or service. “Recall” refers to the percentage who can spontaneously name (or recognize when mentioned) a particular practice, product, or service. “Practice” refers to the desired behavior the program is promoting among members of a population (e.g., delaying first birth after marriage or exclusively breastfeeding during six-months postpartum).

This indicator is calculated as:

(Number of audience members who know of a specific product, practice, or service/Total number of audience members surveyed) x 100

Data Requirement(s):

Self-report from surveys or other measurement tools; sources of information (e.g., how did the user hear about the service?).  Data can be disaggregated by dissemination channel or by audience characteristics (age, sex, geographic location, rural/urban status, or other characteristics of interest to the program).

National, regional, or local sample surveys with members (preferably a representative sample) of the intended audience

Evaluators may measure exposure of a product, practice, or service in two ways: spontaneous and aided recall, as shown on the previous indicator. For example, the design of the DHS questionnaire facilitates the process of determining which contraceptive methods a respondent knows. The interviewer first asks the respondent to name any methods that he/she knows for preventing a pregnancy (unaided or spontaneous recall); the interviewer then asks if he/she has ever heard of the methods not mentioned (aided or prompted recall).

Evaluators can combine the unaided and aided knowledge to calculate a percent of the audience that “knows” about (can remember) the product or practice. For example, what percent of the audience has heard of the social marketing brand of condom? When “knowledge” relates to a series of items, such as the different contraceptive methods, then one can measure either (1) the percent that has heard of at least one ___ (method), or (2) the mean number (of methods) known.

Knowing a source of the service or product is another important and measurable aspect of knowledge that applies to almost all areas of reproductive health. Survey questions are often phrased: “Where would you go if you wanted or needed to get _____ (e.g., a Pap smear, counseling for sexual violence, antenatal care)?” To determine the percent of respondents who “know” a facility, the evaluator should ensure that the responses given correspond to actual facilities (and should not simply “accept” as correct any plausible sounding location).

This indicator does not in itself indicate if the intended population learned anything from this exposure, or if they approve/disapprove of the product, practice, or service. However, it is important in establishing exposure to a campaign, and if desired, establishing a dose-response effect (i.e., an effect that increases with number of exposures to the message(s)).

communication

If audiences are disaggregated by sex, the percent of men and women able to recall a specific mes­sage will likely differ. Social and behavior change communication specialists planning to reach an intended audience through the media should explore the extent to which gender differences affect access to the media. In many countries, lower levels of literacy among women than men limit the effec­tiveness of reaching women through print media including newspapers, brochures, posters, the internet, and bill­boards. Women in some societies have less ac­cess to television outside the home. Where tele­visions are only available in public or community places, audiences are more likely to be men with more freedom to go out at night. In societies which highly resist women‘s movements outside the home, women primarily obtain their information about the world from their male family members; reaching these women with health messages re­quires other approaches. Women frequently have access to radio within homes, and radio has been demonstrated as a viable way to reach women with health messages in numerous set­tings.