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Strategic Stakeholder Communications for Strengthening Health Systems

Persuasive and informational communications designed to raise stakeholder awareness, modify opinions and attitudes, and change professional behavior and personal practice are instrumental to the strategic management of the health reform process. Nevertheless, health sector communications activities are usually fragmented at the grassroots along vertical program lines, or focused on commodities, and at the policy level, generally limited to traditional dissemination modes. Often, the full potential of strategic communications is underestimated or neglected by social scientists, policy planners, central managers, and donors who help engineer health system strengthening in middle and low-income countries. This primer explores how a calibrated mix of targeted and mass communications can help bridge the science and the art of making lasting health system improvements.