Step 4

Step 4#

Intervention Design and Production#

In Steps 2 and 3 of Intervention Mapping, the focus was mainly on psychological factors and abstract concepts. In Step 4, the insights gained from these steps are transformed into concrete intervention components, such as activities and materials. Program components should be tailored to the culture of the target population and be practical to implement.

Tasks of IM Step 4 involve:

  • Define intervention structure (themes, components, scope, and sequence)

  • Plan intervention messages, materials and activities

  • Produce intervention materials, activities, and protocols

  • Pretest, refine and finalize materials, activities, and protocols

Program plan#

Your program plan needs a good structure. You first organize the methods and applications of choice in a program plan that describes who must do what and when, considering available channels and the delivery systems. The program structure should describe the following:

  • the themes, general organizing constructs

  • the scope of the program, the breadth and amount of the program

  • the sequence, the order of program activities

  • the delivery vehicles or channels: what, when, where, how much, how often?

  • cultural relevance of the program

While a channel is the route or method used to send a message, which can be interpersonal (directly delivered by one or more individuals) or mediated (all other ways to deliver intervention messages), a vehicle refers to how a message is actually delivered. For instance, in an interpersonal channel, a teacher or a health worker might be the vehicle delivering a message through conversation or a workshop.

Program materials#

Program materials should support your program, and logically follow from the change objectives that you have formulated in Step 2, and the methods and applications that were chosen in Step 3. The program should reach the intended at-risk population or target group, and the environmental agents, so the delivery context or setting are important to consider.

  • Prepare plans for program materials: create specifications and working documents.

  • Working documents express the themes and messages of the materials. Points to consider: type of application, length, feasibility, salience, production qualities, design, clarity, and so on.

Specify the necessary creative resources, the program producers, so that you can produce the applications.

Remember that you have to collaborate with experts in different professions and that you are the only expert aware of the parameters of the methods; check the (Step 3) applications for parameters!

Tip

Examples Example format for program material plans:

Program Components

Description

Producers

Poster

The poster to hang in the billboards.

Production Company Name X

Website frontend

The interface that end users of the website are exposed to.

Webdesign Company Y

Note that especially the “Description” should normally be considerably more extensive.

Important

Products

  • Produce program material plans.

Draft messages, materials and protocols#

Once you have an overview of the program components, you start drafting these components. This is described in the IM book on pages 456-464.

When drafting messages as part of an intervention, you can consider the following points:

  • Review the change methods and practical applications identified in Step 3 for each set of objectives. Consider how these can be grouped and effectively presented through a specific delivery channel, such as a newspaper article or media campaign.

  • Organize all change objectives according to their determinants, methods, and practical applications. This will help identify the specific message needs for each module of your program.

  • Draft clear and targeted messages that align with individual change objectives or groups of objectives. Messages should be shaped by the selected theoretical methods and the parameters for effectiveness of each method should be considered.

  • Make sure your messages are appropriate for the delivery vehicle you plan to use, such as a newspaper article or interactive media.

  • Throughout the message development process, ensure all content is clearly written, culturally appropriate, easily understood by your target audience, and aligned with the overall goals of the intervention.

Pretest, refine, and produce materials#

While pretesting focuses on evaluating specific messages and program materials with the intended audience before final production, pilot-testing involves trying out the entire program with both the participants and implementers prior to the full-scale launch.

Various methods, such as interviews, focus groups, or surveys, can be used for both pretesting and pilot-testing. In addition to using qualitative methods, experimental methods can also be employed during pretesting (Whittingham et al., 2008). The feedback gathered through these methods can help improve program materials. However, it is important to ensure that any changes made do not compromise the program’s overall coherence or disrupt the causal links between change objectives, behavior change methods, and practical applications.

  • How would you pretest the program applications and materials?

  • Pretest materials on members of the target population and professionals.

  • Evaluate the results.

  • Anticipate implementation before you finalize the applications and program.

  • Check: are all your change objectives still in the final program?