Humanizing Bias: The Beyond Bias Behavior Change Strategy

Abstract for Preformed Panel Presentation from the 2022 International SBCC Summit in Morocco:

"Provider bias and judgmental behavior is a major barrier to the use of contraception by young people. Training and supervision efforts have been inadequate to address bias towards youth and adolescents seeking contraceptive services. To disrupt the status quo, Beyond Bias project, implemented by Pathfinder International in collaboration with YLabs, Camber Collective and BERI, developed an innovative behavior change strategy to combat this entrenched barrier to care. The Beyond Bias Behavior Change Strategy integrates three solutions: i) "Summit" - a story-driven event designed to facilitate dialogue and reflection on provider bias and build empathy for young people's needs; ii) "Connect" - an interactive forum for knowledge sharing and learning, and iii) "Rewards" - a growth-oriented non-monetary performance-based incentive assessed through client feedback on provider behavior. The model is designed to empathetically support health care providers at every phase of their journey from developing awareness of their own bias, working to overcome them, applying unbiased care practices, to becoming advocates for improving contraceptive services for youth in their community. This new approach seeks to humanize bias by building empathy, giving social affirmation, and providing concrete support and social rewards that can change behavior. Beyond Bias employed a rigorous multidisciplinary approach that included an intensive human-centered design (HCD) process. HCD was used to generate more than 100 brainstorming ideas by partners, providers, and youth; and to winnow them into one integrated intervention through multiple rounds of testing, iteration, and refinement."