The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Impact Data - National Mental Health Community Awareness Campaign

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Date
Methodologies
A tracking survey comprising 1200 telephone interviews with respondents aged 16 and over was conducted between November 23 and December 7, 1995. The results of this "second wave" of tracking are compared to results from the benchmark survey (April 1995) and the "first wave" of tracking (August 1995).
Knowledge Shifts
When asked if mental illness awareness had increased, decreased, or stayed the same over the last 15 years, 83% of respondents thought it had increased, as compared to 74% in the benchmark survey. When asked if they had enough information about mental illness, 57% answered in the affirmative (as compared to 52% in the benchmark survey).

28% of respondents (as compared to 24% in the benchmark survey) strongly agreed that "mental illness can be caused by taking drugs". 45% of respondents in this survey, as compared to 37% in the benchmark survey, reported thinking that more than half of people with a mental illness could recover and lead a normal life. The forms of mental illness that people were most aware of were schizophrenia (57%), depression (24%) and 'nervous breakdown' (17%). There was a decrease in the proportion of respondents reporting Alzheimer's disease as a mental illness (26% in this survey vs. 17% in the benchmark survey).
Practices
The research found that most people (95%) would be willing to mingle with a person with a mental illness at a social event. The smallest proportion of people would be willing to have a person with a mental illness marry into their family (62%). However, the proportion of respondents agreeing with this statement has increased from 56% in a preliminary study conducted in November 1993. 65% of respondents would go to see their local doctor if they developed a mental health problem.
Attitudes
Over half of respondents who saw the television/cinema advertising reported that it made them think about their own attitudes toward people with a mental illness. (This represents an increase from the last tracking survey.) There has been an increase in the proportion of respondents strongly agreeing that "people with a mental illness should have the same educational opportunities as other people" - 41% compared to 36% in the benchmark survey. Similarly, 82% in this survey (as compared to 74% in the benchmark survey) totally agreed that "people with a mental illness have the same rights as others to employment"; the number of those totally agreeing that "people with a mental illness should have the same employment opportunites as other people" increased from 68% to 77%.

As compared with the benchmark survey, fewer respondents made negative statements about the behaviour of those with mental illness:
  • "people with a mental illness are more likely to commit crimes" (28% vs. 23%)
  • "people with a mental illness are unpredictable" (66% vs. 54%)
  • "people with a mental illness can't handle too much responsibility" (50% vs. 35%)
  • "people with a mental illness are more likely to commit offences or crimes" (28% vs. 23%).

37% of respondents, as compared to 27% surveyed in the benchmark study, strongly agreed that "the way people with mental illness feel can be affected by other peoples' attitudes towards them". 24% (up 4%) agreed that "mental illness is just like any other illness".
Access
70% of respondents reported having seen, heard, or read something about mental illness. (This figure marks an increase from 66% in the first tracking survey and 61% in the benchmark survey.) 29% of all respondents reported having seen a mental illness television or cinema advertisement (unprompted). 43% of all respondents described a campaign advertisement when asked whether they had seen any advertisement on television or at the cinema that dealt with mental illness. (There was an increase in awareness of specific advertisements, like "man in the office", "singer in the band", and "boy and fishing trip", as well as a total increase from 37% as compared to the first tracking survey). 82% of respondents could recall seeing a campaign advertisement after hearing a description of the advertisements (fully prompted) (up from 74% in the previous tracking phase). 79% of those respondents who reported seeing the advertisements reported seeing them five times or more. Unprompted awareness of the campaign posters and billboards was 3%. Prompted awareness was 7%.

When asked what the main messages of the television and cinema advertisements were, the most frequently cited responses were:
  • Don't treat people any differently (31%)
  • People should be more caring/understanding/accepting (21%)
  • Don't prejudge/be prejudiced (20%)
  • Mental illness is just like any illness/physical illness (19%).
Source
March, 1996 Public Affairs and International Branch Research Report: "Community Attitudes Toward People with Mental Illness: Advertising Tracking - Wave 2" by Research and Marketing Group, Public Affairs and International Branch, Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health Level 2.