Positive Deviance: A Non-Normative Approach to Health and Risk Messaging. Singhal, A. & Durá, L. Oxford Research Encyclopedias, March, 2017. ![Positive Deviance: A Non-Normative Approach to Health and Risk Messaging [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper abstract bibtex The Positive Deviance (PD) approach is based on the premise that every community has individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers although everyone has access to the same resources and challenges. In contrast to traditional problem-solving approaches that begin with an expert-driven analysis of “what is not working” with people—their explicit needs, deficits, problems, and risks—followed by attempts to plug those gaps, the PD approach focuses on identifying “what is working.” PD offers a systematic framework to identify assets, indigenous knowledge, and home-grown solutions, and to amplify them for wider adoption. The PD approach was operationalized and systematized in the early 1990s in Vietnam to address malnutrition. At the time, 65% of children under five were malnourished. Instead of looking for the causes and applying best practices, PD pioneers looked for children from very poor families who were well-nourished. Through community-led efforts, they determined the existence of positive deviants, identified their behaviors and strategies, and amplified them. The process was replicated across 14 villages—each identifying its own batch of local practices—and malnutrition decreased by 85%. These actions led to PD as we know it today in the form of the “6 Ds”: Define, Determine, Discover, Design, Discern, and Disseminate. PD has been used widely to address a large number of intractable social problems—many of them dealing with health and risk: reducing endemic malnutrition, decreasing neonatal and maternal mortality, reducing goiter and diseases of micronutrient deficiency, boosting organ transplantation rates and cancer screenings, increasing mental well-being and psychological resilience, preventing and controlling malaria and Chagas, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in healthcare. From 2004 to 2008, six U.S. hospitals pioneered the use of PD to address the growing incidence of infections caused by the antibiotic resistant bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). PD was used to identify and amplify evidence-based infection prevention practices. Pilot outcomes included a 73% average reduction in healthcare-associated MRSA infections units and a subsequent decrease of between 33 and 84% at the different hospitals. The PD approach to problem-solving holds important implications for public health scholars and practitioners, risk communicators, and message designers. The cases of Vietnam and one of the pilot hospitals are used to illustrate the ways that through language- and action-based strategies PD challenges traditional risk and health messaging, proposing instead an asset-based, participatory, and sustainable framework.
@article{singhal_positive_2017,
title = {Positive {Deviance}: {A} {Non}-{Normative} {Approach} to {Health} and {Risk} {Messaging}},
url = {https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-248},
abstract = {The Positive Deviance (PD) approach is based on the premise that every community has individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers although everyone has access to the same resources and challenges. In contrast to traditional problem-solving approaches that begin with an expert-driven analysis of “what is not working” with people—their explicit needs, deficits, problems, and risks—followed by attempts to plug those gaps, the PD approach focuses on identifying “what is working.” PD offers a systematic framework to identify assets, indigenous knowledge, and home-grown solutions, and to amplify them for wider adoption.
The PD approach was operationalized and systematized in the early 1990s in Vietnam to address malnutrition. At the time, 65\% of children under five were malnourished. Instead of looking for the causes and applying best practices, PD pioneers looked for children from very poor families who were well-nourished. Through community-led efforts, they determined the existence of positive deviants, identified their behaviors and strategies, and amplified them. The process was replicated across 14 villages—each identifying its own batch of local practices—and malnutrition decreased by 85\%. These actions led to PD as we know it today in the form of the “6 Ds”: Define, Determine, Discover, Design, Discern, and Disseminate.
PD has been used widely to address a large number of intractable social problems—many of them dealing with health and risk: reducing endemic malnutrition, decreasing neonatal and maternal mortality, reducing goiter and diseases of micronutrient deficiency, boosting organ transplantation rates and cancer screenings, increasing mental well-being and psychological resilience, preventing and controlling malaria and Chagas, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in healthcare.
From 2004 to 2008, six U.S. hospitals pioneered the use of PD to address the growing incidence of infections caused by the antibiotic resistant bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). PD was used to identify and amplify evidence-based infection prevention practices. Pilot outcomes included a 73\% average reduction in healthcare-associated MRSA infections units and a subsequent decrease of between 33 and 84\% at the different hospitals.
The PD approach to problem-solving holds important implications for public health scholars and practitioners, risk communicators, and message designers. The cases of Vietnam and one of the pilot hospitals are used to illustrate the ways that through language- and action-based strategies PD challenges traditional risk and health messaging, proposing instead an asset-based, participatory, and sustainable framework.},
journal = {Oxford Research Encyclopedias},
author = {Singhal, Arvind and Durá, Lucia},
month = mar,
year = {2017},
keywords = {Concept of Positive Deviance},
}
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In contrast to traditional problem-solving approaches that begin with an expert-driven analysis of “what is not working” with people—their explicit needs, deficits, problems, and risks—followed by attempts to plug those gaps, the PD approach focuses on identifying “what is working.” PD offers a systematic framework to identify assets, indigenous knowledge, and home-grown solutions, and to amplify them for wider adoption. The PD approach was operationalized and systematized in the early 1990s in Vietnam to address malnutrition. At the time, 65% of children under five were malnourished. Instead of looking for the causes and applying best practices, PD pioneers looked for children from very poor families who were well-nourished. Through community-led efforts, they determined the existence of positive deviants, identified their behaviors and strategies, and amplified them. The process was replicated across 14 villages—each identifying its own batch of local practices—and malnutrition decreased by 85%. These actions led to PD as we know it today in the form of the “6 Ds”: Define, Determine, Discover, Design, Discern, and Disseminate. PD has been used widely to address a large number of intractable social problems—many of them dealing with health and risk: reducing endemic malnutrition, decreasing neonatal and maternal mortality, reducing goiter and diseases of micronutrient deficiency, boosting organ transplantation rates and cancer screenings, increasing mental well-being and psychological resilience, preventing and controlling malaria and Chagas, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in healthcare. From 2004 to 2008, six U.S. hospitals pioneered the use of PD to address the growing incidence of infections caused by the antibiotic resistant bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). 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The process was replicated across 14 villages—each identifying its own batch of local practices—and malnutrition decreased by 85\\%. These actions led to PD as we know it today in the form of the “6 Ds”: Define, Determine, Discover, Design, Discern, and Disseminate.\n\nPD has been used widely to address a large number of intractable social problems—many of them dealing with health and risk: reducing endemic malnutrition, decreasing neonatal and maternal mortality, reducing goiter and diseases of micronutrient deficiency, boosting organ transplantation rates and cancer screenings, increasing mental well-being and psychological resilience, preventing and controlling malaria and Chagas, and reducing hospital-acquired infections in healthcare.\n\nFrom 2004 to 2008, six U.S. hospitals pioneered the use of PD to address the growing incidence of infections caused by the antibiotic resistant bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). 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