Health Systems Strengthening Practice Spotlight: Social Accountability and Social and Behavior Change

Social and behavior change is a foundational component of effective and sustainable health system strengthening programming. There is growing interest in how to incorporate social and behavior change approaches to advance the accountability, affordability, accessibility, and reliability of high-quality health services. The Practice Spotlights Social and Behavior Change series supports USAID’s Vision for Health System Strengthening 2030 by exploring the ways in which social and behavior change approaches can contribute to countries’ health system strengthening efforts.

This brief highlights the recent shifts in health systems practice toward more explicitly incorporating an SBC lens in social accountability activities that aim to improve overall health system performance and address inequities. The brief synthesizes the growing body of evidence on the role social accountability plays in increasing accessibility to better-quality health care services and uses case studies and lessons learned to highlight how SBC approaches can be more explicitly integrated into this aspect of HSS programming.