Community Health Education Support via a Mobile Application
Including Community Health members in the Community Health Education Spectrum to widen the health knowledge base and ease the workload of Community Health Workers in communities. Also the COVID-19 pandemic taught us that it's important to have mass health education to nurture self-support communities but also to empower the population with health knowledge to mitigate misinformation loopholes. We're preparing for the next pandemic-it should find the communities equipped with health knowledge.
The Problem
Whereas the population is growing the resource to support & train community health workers are shrinking. Besides, Village Health Teams in Uganda are volunteer community support workers with a high attrition rate of 50 percent between 1 and 3 years versus training and replacement. This is according to our research study carried out in collaboration with Kampala School of Paramedicals. How about getting the community members involved in the health knowledge spectrum?
Service Benefits
Whereas the population is growing the resource to support community health are shrinking. Besides, VHTs are volunteer community support workers with an expected high attrition rate versus training and replacement. How are about involve the community in the health knowledge circuit?
Prototype Screen
Click to expand screenshot
The Intervention
The project started as Village Health Teams research study (paper-DOI: 10.56059/pcf10.3349). The question asked is why not include community members in community health knowledge spectrum? The challenges faced by VHTs as outlined in the paper will be reduced. The DigiCHealth training App is designed to support community members with community health knowledge using English and the regional dialects.
Achieved
A health education mobile application prototype was designed and used in a the study in the district of Agago in Northern Uganda. The research study was done in collaboration with Kampala School of Paramedicals.
Way Forward
Nothing prevents our being able to do what we like as contribution to the communities.
Fundraising
Funding to develop the mobile application guided by the proven framework from the pilot study.
Partners & Stakeholders
Engage partners and stakeholders to rally behind the project to maximize reach and better outcomes.
Training
Training health community leaders/implementing partners on the deployment, use and analysis of data from the application
- Who is it for?
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DigiCHealth App is for community health teams and community members interested to learning about primary health care and support at the community level.
- How is it intended to work?
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The DigiCHealth App is a smartphone mobile application installed on a mobile phone. The community health workers and the community members use it as a knowledge support, health center locator, and communication tool.
- What are the benefit of using the DigiCHealth App?
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- Reduce the cost and the damage of depending on paper work - Regular access to work guiding content. - Community of practice support at work - Communication with health workers at the nearest center. - Community members are involved in the health knowledge spectrum.
