A case study for a psychographic-behavioral segmentation approach for targeted demand generation in voluntary medical male circumcision
Abstract
Public health programs are starting to recognize the need to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach in demand generation, and instead tailor interventions to the heterogeneity underlying human decision making. Currently, however, there is a lack of methods to enable such targeting. We describe a novel hybrid behavioral-psychographic segmentation approach to segment stakeholders on potential barriers to a target behavior. We then apply the method in a case study of demand generation for voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) among 15-29-year-old males in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Canonical correlations and hierarchical clustering techniques were applied on representative samples of men in each country who were differentiated by their underlying reasons for their propensity to get circumcised. We characterized six distinct segments of men in Zimbabwe, and seven segments in Zambia, according to their needs, perceptions, attitudes and behaviors towards VMMC, thus highlighting distinct reasons for a failure to engage in the desired behavior.
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Author details
Funding
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Contract #24210)
- Steve Kretschmer
The funders were involved in the study design, but had no role in data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: In Zambia, ethical approval was received by ERES CONVERGE IRB, Ref. No. 2014-Aug-008In Zimbabwe, ethical approval was received by MRCZ, Ref. No. MRCZ/A/1884Consent to publish was received by all authors and the governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe.Written consent was obtained by all respondents. For those respondents below the age of 18 years (minors), both parental consent and consent from the interviewee were received. Consent forms were signed by both parent/guardian and minor in these cases. No respondents were under the age of 13 years.
Copyright
© 2017, Sgaier et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Results: Twenty-eight top-ranked metabolites were included in linear regression models adjusted for the child's nutritional status, diet quality, and infant age. Cresol sulfate (β = -0.07; adjusted-p < 0.001), hippuric acid (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), phenylacetylglutamine (β = -0.06; adjusted-p < 0.001), and trimethylamine-N-oxide (β = -0.05; adjusted-p = 0.002) showed inverse associations with DQ. We observed opposite directions in the association of DQ for creatinine (for children aged -1 SD: β = -0.05; p =0.01; +1 SD: β = 0.05; p =0.02) and methylhistidine (-1 SD: β = - 0.04; p =0.04; +1 SD: β = 0.04; p =0.03).
Conclusion: Serum biomarkers, including dietary and microbial-derived metabolites involved in the gut-brain axis, may potentially be used to track children at risk for developmental delays.
Funding: Supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian National Research Council.