Serial dramas modeling family planning shifted reproductive behavior by 33 percentage points.

Evidence

A serial radio drama broadcast in Niger (Jah, Connolly, Barker, & Ryerson, 2014) modeled the benefits of planned childbearing and birth spacing and the adverse social and health effects of frequent unplanned childbearing. To enable listeners to turn their desired family futures into reality, the models taught them how to discuss intimate reproductive family matters when it was difficult to do so. Listeners were also taught how to prevent obstetric fistulas. … According to before-and-after assessments, listeners were twice as likely to discuss family planning and reproductive health after listening to the radio drama. They regarded smaller families as ideal, favored more space between births, and were less likely to believe that using contraceptives goes against the will of Allah or God. They increased adoption of contraceptive methods from 18% at baseline to 51% following the serial drama. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2882

Categorization

• CANDY: The 18% to 51% contraceptive adoption jump from a mere radio drama is a striking, easily-retold fact.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: which concrete modeling techniques — discussion scripts vs. outcome portrayals — drove the shift? This is the efficacy-mechanism detail the causal claim needs.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2882