Bonnie Kittle has made Social Behavior Change (SBC) and Barrier Analysis (BA) her life’s work and passion, and that work has effectively contributed to the reduction of global maternal-child morbidity and mortality. Her contribution and influence as an SBC thought-leader and master trainer has made SBC using BA, one of the most successful strategies used by NGOs around the world to improve child survival and development. Bonnie has worked in international development/public health since 1974 including seven long-term overseas assignments in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Her work included Child Survival Project evaluations and capacity-building of staff from 40+ CORE member organizations on SBC.
Her contributions include co-chairing the SBC Working Group for three years, developing DBC curricula related to WASH, malaria, HIV-AIDS, and gender, and facilitating advanced workshops on DBC/BA. She co-authored Make Me a Change Agent and wrote The Advanced Workshop on Designing for Behavior Change. Bonnie has also published 30+ BA questionnaires on topics such as maternal-child health, WASH, food security, and agriculture. Her most notable published work is the Practical Guide to Conducting BA (2013), which is very useful for practitioners in designing evidence-based behavior change strategies. She has facilitated more DBC/BA trainings than anyone else in the world, and is one of the main reasons that BA has now been used in more than one-third of all LMICs. Through Bonnie’s work, CORE members and development workers now see SBC in a different light, and are more cognizant of the importance of formative research to inform behavior change. She has inspired many NGOs and individuals, and even in her retirement, she continues to enjoy providing technical assistance on SBC/BA.