A collaboration between ideas42 and IntraHealth International, the SupCap project is part of the USAID-funded Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda (RHITES-E). It aims to:

1. Improve the health and well-being of women of reproductive age in eastern Uganda
2. Increase IntraHealth staff understanding of and ability to use behavioral science to address behavioral barriers to increase the use of quality health services in Uganda and elsewhere in east Africa.

Behavioral science is an academic discipline that incorporates psychology and other social sciences to understand human behavior. For both components of the project, staff used a four-stage behavioral science methodology to co-design solutions with community members:

• Define a specific problem
• Diagnose the problem by conducting interviews with key stakeholders
• Design solutions based on diagnosis and behavioral science knowledge
• Scale, test, and evaluate new designs.

Using this methodology, the SupCap team has developed a co-designed intervention package, which includes the following components:

• Interactive game – played by male partners of postpartum women and facilitated by local volunteer health teams
• Planning/referral card – received by game participants to be filled out with their partners and taken to a health facility 
• Text messages – sent to game participants, volunteer health teams, and health workers.

A pilot test of the intervention showed the intervention package increased couples’ communication about family planning, increased contraceptive uptake, and increased knowledge about contraceptive methods. The intervention is currently being scaled up in six districts in eastern Uganda. 

Five IntraHealth teams also participated in a series of behavioral science boot camps, culminating in behavioral science projects with the aim to increase human resources for health reporting to inform management decisions, improve adolescent long-acting reversible contraception uptake, increase voluntary medical male circumcision services, improve documentation process for progress of induced labor, and increase partners/spouses attending antenatal care visits.