Population-Level Behavior Change to Enhance Child Survival and Development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

It is fitting that this special edition of the Journal of Health Communication is dedicated to the evidence for the effectiveness of behavior and social change in child survival and development. The field of health communication and the use of evidence, in fact, have strong roots in the early applications of mass media and social marketing to programs for vaccines and oral rehydration therapy starting in the 1970s during the first Child Survival Revolution. A review of evidence of the effectiveness of 10 large-scale communication and behavior change programs for child survival conducted in eight developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America between the late 1980s and early 1990s demonstrated substantial success in 9 of the 16 evaluated child survival-related outcomes This special issue continues this tradition of applying high standards of evidence to the review of health communication and behavior change programs.