Focus group discussions among the Bai in China to inform a social marketing campaign for sanitation promotion

Abstract

Local cultural norms, values, beliefs, and practices related to toilet use must be understood before planning household toilet promotion initiatives. Focus group discussions may be used to gain this understanding. This paper (1) reports the methods and results of focus group research used in southwest China among the Bai people group to inform a sanitation marketing campaign; (2) reports the advantages and challenges of a multi-cultural research team in focus group research; and (3) evaluates the usefulness of focus group discussions to inform the campaign.