Victor Orozco

Entertainment media for social impact

Ideas can change
behavior.
Stories can change
societies.

Victor Hugo Orozco-Olvera is an economist and researcher exploring how behavioral science, entertainment, technology, and artificial intelligence can drive measurable social change at scale.

Explore the ResearchAbout Victor
Victor Hugo Orozco-Olvera in a suit and tie, photographed at an event.

Victor Hugo Orozco-Olvera

Economist · Researcher · Global Program Leader

Ideas moving across institutions, industries, and cultures.

  • World Bank Group
  • Princeton
  • Oxford
  • IFC
  • MTV
  • Meta
  • Discovery
  • Cinépolis
  • Girl Effect
  • ONE Campaign
  • UNGA
  • Cannes
  • Sundance
  • Skoll
  • AFRIFF
  • NPR
  • Bloomberg
  • El País

The questions behind the work

The questions behind the work

  1. 01

    Can a television drama reduce HIV risk?

  2. 02

    Can social media change gender norms?

  3. 03

    Can AI help us understand the stories shaping society?

  4. 04

    Can entertainment improve education?

  5. 05

    Can storytelling change behavior at scale?

These aren't hypothetical questions.
They're research questions.

See what the evidence says

Research areas

Five threads, one question.

Each area is a different way into the same problem: how the stories people watch, share, and believe end up shaping what they do.

  • 01

    Entertainment & Media

    How film, television, storytelling, and social platforms influence behavior and social norms.

  • 02

    Behavioral Economics

    The psychological and social forces behind human decisions — and the messages that move them.

  • 03

    Artificial Intelligence

    Using AI and machine learning to understand media, behavior, social narratives, and online speech.

  • 04

    Global Development

    Testing interventions across education, health, gender equality, economic opportunity, and wellbeing.

  • 05

    Social Norms & Behavior Change

    How beliefs spread, and how change occurs at population scale rather than one person at a time.

Evidence

Research that reached real audiences.

Randomized evaluations of entertainment, media, and messaging — conducted with governments, studios, platforms, and universities.

01 · Nigeria

MTV Shuga × HIV Prevention

Can a television drama reduce HIV risk?

A randomized evaluation of MTV Shuga, an edutainment drama watched across Africa, tested whether a television series could change young people's sexual health behavior — not just their attitudes.

2×Viewers of MTV Shuga were twice as likely to get tested for HIV.
What happened
Twice as likely to get tested for HIV — a result covered by The Hollywood Reporter, NPR, and Bloomberg.
Why it matters
If a drama can move behavior at the scale of a broadcast audience, entertainment becomes one of the most cost-effective public-health tools available.

World Bank study with Abhijit Banerjee (MIT) and Eliana La Ferrara (Bocconi)

Read the research

02 · India

Facebook Ads × Malaria Prevention

Can social media prevent disease?

Two field experiments randomly assigned a nationwide malaria-prevention advertising campaign across Indian districts, measuring effects on 8,257 surveyed individuals and administrative health records.

−44%Self-reported malaria incidence fell by 44 percent among users in lower-risk, solid dwellings.
What happened
An 11 percent rise in bed-net use and 13 percent rise in timely treatment-seeking — with facility data showing a 30 percent drop in urban monthly incidence.
Why it matters
The same campaign did nothing where ads didn't reach — proving that targeting, not just content, decides whether social media can deliver public health.

World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10967 (2024)

Read the research

03 · Northern Nigeria

My Better World × Education

Can entertainment keep girls in school?

Community screenings of the African series My Better World — later honored with an International Emmy for partners Impact(Ed) International and Fundi Films — were evaluated for their effect on schooling, marriage, and parenthood.

What happened
Screenings significantly increased school attendance and reduced teenage marriage and teenage parenthood — at both the 1-year and 3-year follow-ups.
Why it matters
Effects that persist three years later suggest stories don't just nudge a moment — they can redirect a life trajectory.

World Bank research in northern Nigeria

Read the research

04 · 23 countries

Behavioral Messaging × COVID-19

Which words move vaccine intentions?

A global research program of 28 online experiments recruited 123,270 people through social media across 23 mostly low- and middle-income countries to test behaviorally informed vaccination messages.

1.28×Behaviorally informed messages increased the odds of vaccination intention overall — up to 1.93× in individual studies.
What happened
Framings built on experts and religious leaders raised odds of vaccination intention by up to 1.45 times.
Why it matters
A rapid, evidence-ranked playbook for health communication — built for the next crisis before it arrives.

World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 10981 (2024)

Read the research

Narrating Behavior Change

Entertainment is more than entertainment.

Stories shape what people believe is possible, acceptable, normal, and desirable.

Victor founded and leads the World Bank Group's program on entertainment media for social impact, within the Development Impact Group (DECDI).

He runs it in close collaboration with researchers and practitioners across governments, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, development partners, academia, and leading entertainment and technology organizations — including MTV, Discovery, Meta, Girl Effect, Cinépolis, Impact Lounge, and the ONE Campaign.

  • FILM
  • TELEVISION
  • SOCIAL MEDIA
  • MOBILE
  • STORYTELLING
  • AI
  • BEHAVIOR
Explore Narrating Behavior Change

Where the work happens

Evidence built across four regions.

Environment · Behavior

Can cash transfers protect forests and livelihoods?

Mexico — National payments for ecosystem services, 2011–2014

  • Latin America
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • South Asia
  • Middle East & North Africa

Selected writing

Publications

Full record on Google Scholar

Ideas in circulation

Where the evidence enters the conversation.

Audience seated in a darkened cinema during an evening screening.

NPR · 2017

Watch the MTV Soap Opera That Is Secretly Teaching Sex Ed

Read the story

Coverage & commentary

All blogs and media coverage

On stage

  • Cannes Film Festival

    2026

    Impact Lounge panel — “How Storytelling Drives Measurable Social Impact.”

  • Skoll World Forum · Marmalade

    2026

    Panelist on entertainment and social change.

  • United Nations General Assembly

    2025

    WBG Entertaining Change sessions — from UNGA to Abuja, Lagos, and Los Angeles, with actor and director David Oyelowo.

  • HFPA × World Bank Global Forum

    2022

    Co-organized forum with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association; Sharon Stone on entertainment media for global impact.

  • Sundance · AFRIFF · WBG Spring Meetings

    —

    Ongoing dialogue between evidence, cinema, and policy.

About

Victor Hugo
Orozco-Olvera

Senior Economist in the World Bank Group's Development Impact Group (DECDI), where he founded and leads the program on entertainment media for social impact.

His research uses randomized evaluations to test whether storytelling, media, and behaviorally informed messaging can change what people do — in health, education, gender, energy, and the environment — across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

World Bank profileCurriculum vitae
  1. 01

    Princeton

    Master's in Public Affairs and Economics — the tools of policy, learned at scale.

  2. 02

    Oxford

    PhD in Social Intervention — a dissertation on what actually changes behavior.

  3. 03

    World Bank Group

    Senior Economist in the Development Impact Group (DECDI) — evidence as an instrument of development.

  4. 04

    Narrating Behavior Change

    Founded and leads the World Bank Group's program on entertainment media for social impact.

  5. 05

    Global Research + Partnerships

    A portfolio spanning Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia — with governments, studios, platforms, and universities.

Connect

For collaborations, research partnerships, and speaking.

Working with governments, studios, platforms, and universities to design and evaluate media that measurably changes behavior.