Our impact studies aim to identify the extent to which those who have engaged with our programmes have been influenced by them.
For example, we seek to discover if there is any association between exposure to programme outputs and changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.
In Cambodia, we carried out an 'endline' survey in 2006 to assess the impact of our mass media campaign to improve maternal and child health.
A total of 2,274 respondents were interviewed during the baseline survey and 2,281 during the endline survey.
The survey revealed that:
- Awareness of Acute Respiratory Infection (ARIs) had quadrupled since the baseline survey at the beginning of the campaign - from 20% to 80%
- Awareness of all three key ARI danger signs - cough, fast breathing and chest in-drawing - had climbed significantly during the campaign: cough - 10% baseline, 33% midline; fast breathing - 8% baseline, 48% midline; chest in-drawing - 3% baseline, 24% midline
- There was a significant decrease in those who thought a mother or carer should give a baby anything other than breast milk to eat in the first six months - from 60% at the beginning of the campaign to 18% at the end
- Pregnant women taking iron supplements increased dramatically, from 10% at the beginning of the campaign to 44% at end
Impact studies may also evaluate the effectiveness of particular formats, approaches and working practices.
Assessing the impact of journalism training initiatives
We also asses the impact of journalism training initiatives.
We gather evidence of how content produced by participants has changed, and consider whether certain skills and knowledge have been acquired and whether consumers of the content have noticed a difference.
For example in Yemen, samples of news bulletins and stories from media organisations participating in our journalism training programme were systematically analysed before and after training.
We measured changes that could be attributed to the training, including changes to content, format and the journalistic and technical quality of their output.
