Early childhood development – 2nd phase: Testing of campaign

Highlights

•UNICEF campaign has high awareness:

•Spontaneous awareness: 72% of parents/guardians

•Prompted awareness: 75% of parents/guardians

•Prompted awareness of the topics: breastfeeding – 95% of those who noticed the campaign, importance of father’s role – 90%, alternatives to physical punishment – 81%

•Channels of campaign’s communication: TV in the first place (TOM - 78% of those who noticed the campaign), billboards in the second (11%)

•The campaign is more noticed by women, better educated population, employed, with higher incomes, from central region.

•The campaign is very well perceived as well:

•Scores on general impression of TV ads, billboards, newspaper ads vary from 4.6 to 4.8 on the 5-point scale (more then 90% like each presented advertisement). Differences between specific billboards are minor, most of the guardians like all billboards, as well as other tested material.

•70% of parents/guardians stated that the campaign drew attention.

•80% like the campaign in general.

•It is perceived as clear and relevant (it speaks about important issues), but not in so high percentage as addressing them personally.

•The target population is somewhat divided up regarding evaluation of novelty of this campaign. The Unicef campaign brought no new information to 46% of them, while it was informative for 40% of them (mostly information about importance of father’s role).

•45% of parents/guardians stated that the campaign influenced them to think seriously about children and their early development! (15% stated that it influenced to a great extent!)

•14% of parents/guardians claim that the campaign made them change some of their attitudes, in terms of early child development: fathers devote more time to children, they talk more with children, they do not punish them physically…

•19% of target population claim to have changed their behaviour towards children after this campaign! Attitudes mentioned as changed are also mentioned as changed behaviour.

•When we compare knowledge and attitudes expressed in the 1st and the 2nd wave of this research, we can find some confirmations of mentioned findings regarding the awareness and influence of Unicef campaign (although mainly small or moderate, all of the following differences are statistically significant):

•The planned time for breastfeeding increased from 12.7 months on average (1st wave) to 14.6 months.

•Mothers in the 2nd wave stated that they breastfed the child for 8.3 months on average, but they planned to breastfeed their next child for 11.6 months on average (exclusive breastfeeding: 3.1 and 4.2 months).

•This wave also records:

•somewhat higher awareness about the importance of early contact between mother and child

•somewhat higher belief in importance of breastfeeding for child development

•somewhat higher belief that it is important to start with breastfeeding with the first child’s meal

•More guardians disagree with the statement that Breast milk may be of such quality (this refers to quality, not quantity) that it fails to meet all the needs of the child for nutrients (26% in 2nd wave compared 15% in 1st wave).

•It is also indicative that parents/guardians in 2nd wave to less percentage claim that they did not carried out any activity with their children i week which precede the reserch.

•In comparison with the previous wave this wave records significant increase of percentage of parents/guardians who stated that they do not hit children during the week which precede the reserch (from 45% to 76%). Here it is important to note that this indicator can not be taken as indicators of behavioral change, since we did not measure the real behavior. The differences between two waves could occur also due to change in perception what is socialy exeptable and what is not.

•This wave records also lower percentage of parents who think that physical punishment is necessary (from 9% to 5%).

•The campaign generally is somewhat less noticed by males, less educated guardians, unemployed, with lower income, from south or north region, from rural areas, although less educated population in higher extent then others claim that campaign influenced them to change some of their attitudes and behavior toward children.

•Although all mentioned differences between 1st and 2nd wave are statistically significant, they are not of high extent.