The app is a repository of informative health videos.
By Dileep Thekkethil
An Indian American researcher at the John Hopkins University has developed a new app to assist women in rural India to better understand the use of contraceptive choices available so that they can be upgraded to the new methods of family planning.
According to Sanjanthi Velu, who lead the Asia team at the John Hopkins Centre for Communication Programs (CCP), the women who were shown the sensitization videos through the new app which has been named “Gyan Jyothi” were 4.5 times more inclined in using contraceptive methods than the ones who haven’t seen.
“This shows that mobile technology provides an innovative and dynamic platform for social and behaviour change communication,” Velu said.
“It can encourage conversations between women and frontline health workers that are interactive, culturally relevant, and personalised which lead to increased, sustained use of modern contraceptive methods,” he explained.
The motivational videos were shown to the villagers via the app that was installed in the smartphones of 14 ASHA workers who worked in one of the districts in Bihar. Another set of 14 ASHA workers were supplied with more low-tech SD cards.
It is estimated that the set of ASHA workers, who are community health workers appointed by the government, goes to roughly 1,400 rural women.
ASHA’s with the smartphone and the Gyan Jyothi” app installed in it were able to teach the village women about the importance of family planning and customize their family planning by answering to the specific questions raised by each woman.
The ASHA’s who were supplied with the SD card containing the videos failed to customize their interaction with the rural women but on the other hand, the ones who were supplied with the app were able to share the films via Bluetooth to their personal smartphone so that they could show it to their husband or mother-in-laws at a later time.
The researcher that commenced in May 2015 randomly chose 406 Asha’s and were provided with the app and the SD card to provide the details to the villages for a period of five months.
After the research period, they found that 22 percent of the women who were sensitized using the smartphone app used modern contraceptives such as IUDs, oral contraceptive pills and injectable contraception while on the other hand only 13 percent of the women who saw the video through the SD card were using modern contraception.
Women who were visited by an ASHA during the study period were 1.9 times more likely to be using modern contraceptive methods.
What was more encouraging was that women who watched the video, be it on the SD card or through the app, they were 4.5 times more likely to use the modern contraceptive methods.
“Our research shows that there is value in developing targeted mobile platforms that can be customised depending on the needs of each provider and her clients,” Velu noted.
The app, which has a compilation of videos, both entertaining and educational, talks in detail about family planning and modern contraceptive methods along with question answer videos with doctors and other videos that answer common misconceptions and myths.
According to Velu, the app is easily upgradable and can adapt to different languages and provide different family health information according to the necessities of each family.
The findings were presented at the “International Family Planning Conference” in Nusa Dua, Indonesia on Thursday.