Foundations of Behavioural Science for AMR and HIV in Southern Africa
Foundations of Behavioural Science for AMR and HIV in Southern Africa
Registration is managed directly by the Behaviour Change Academy. Payment is accepted in USD.
Start exploring our course
Registration is managed directly by the Behaviour Change Academy. Payment is accepted in USD.
Upcoming dates:
- 15 September 2026 (Online)
Time: 09h00 to 15h30 (SAST / CAT)
Format: Online, live facilitation
Fee: USD 95 per delegate
Team rate: Available for three or more delegates from one organisation
Places: Limited
Delivered with: Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Foundations of Behavioural Science for AMR and HIV in Southern Africa – One day. Online. Certificate of completion from the Behaviour Change Academy.
This one-day course applies behavioural science to the two challenges that shape health outcomes across Southern Africa: antimicrobial resistance and HIV. We know which medicines work. We know what patients and health workers should do. This course is about why it so often does not happen, and what to do about it. Delivered online with Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, and built around the realities of African health systems rather than imported from elsewhere.
This is a working day, not a lecture. You arrive with a live problem from your own ward, clinic or programme. You leave with the barrier diagnosed, an intervention designed and one measure to test it against.
Antimicrobial resistance and HIV are not only clinical problems. They are behavioural ones. Whether a patient completes a course of antibiotics. Whether a prescriber holds the line under pressure. Whether a client stays in care once they feel well. Whether a community acts on what it is told. Each of those is a behaviour, and every behaviour can be diagnosed and designed for.
The course is regional by design. Delegates from across Southern Africa work alongside one another, and the case material is African throughout.
- ■ Course format: Online, live facilitation
- ■ For: Clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, programme managers, community health leads, M&E staff, SBCC practitioners, researchers
- ■ You'll leave with: A Behaviour Change Action Plan for a real challenge from your own work
'Most health problems are behaviour problems.'
Willingness is there, skills set is there in part, the systems may be missing.
What you'll learn
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Behavioural science in African health systems
What it is, why it matters, and why AMR and HIV programmes stall when they treat knowledge as the gap.
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The shortcuts behind behaviour
Friction, present bias, social norms, habit, identity and trust, and how each one shows up in a clinic.
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Barriers and enablers
Diagnosis before intervention, using COM-B and the social ecological model to find where a behaviour actually breaks.
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Designing interventions
Match the solution to the barrier you found, using the behaviour change cycle and the EAST framework.
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Application to your own setting
Build a Behaviour Change Action Plan for a real challenge from your own work.
Who is it for?
If your work touches antimicrobial resistance, HIV or TB in any way, this course is for you. No prior training in behavioural science is required.
Clinicians and nurses. Pharmacists and stewardship leads. Programme and district managers. Community health leads. Monitoring and evaluation staff. Communications and SBCC practitioners. Researchers and lecturers. Anyone designing or delivering health interventions across Southern Africa.
Delegates who attend as a team of two or three from one organisation work on the same problem together, which is usually where the value lands.
Behavioural science gives you a method for problems that resist information alone:
- ■ Patients who stop antibiotics on day three, as soon as they feel better
- ■ Prescribing that drifts from stewardship guidance on an understaffed ward
- ■ Clients who disengage from care once they are virally suppressed
- ■ TB treatment interrupted before the course is complete
- ■ Low PrEP uptake among people who understand the risk perfectly well
- ■ Infection prevention protocols followed in training but not at the bedside
- ■ Communities that receive the message and still do not trust it
And those are only a few of the possibilities. Once you have the tools, you will be able to explore how they apply in your own context.
By the end of this course you'll be able to ...
- ■ Diagnose why a specific health behaviour is failing, rather than assuming people do not care
- ■ Break a behaviour down into the micro steps where it actually breaks
- ■ Map barriers and enablers using COM-B and the social ecological model
- ■ Design an intervention matched to the barrier you have diagnosed
- ■ Choose one measure that tells you whether it worked
- ■ Leave with a completed Behaviour Change Action Plan for your own setting
Certificate of successful completion
Delegates receive a Certificate of Successful Completion from the Behaviour Change Academy on full participation. The certificate is issued digitally and can be shared on LinkedIn and other professional platforms.
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