Informal m-health: How are young people using mobile phones to bridge healthcare gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Abstract

The African communications 'revolution' has generated optimism that mobile phones might help overcome infrastructural barriers to healthcare provision in resource-poor contexts. However, while formal m-health programmes remain limited in coverage and scope, young people are using mobile phones creatively and strategically in an attempt to secure effective healthcare. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in 2012-2014 from over 4500 young people (aged 8-25 y) in Ghana, Malawi and South Africa, this paper documents these practices and the new therapeutic opportunities they create, alongside the constraints, contingencies and risks. We argue that young people are endeavouring to lay claim to a digitally-mediated form of therapeutic citizenship, but that a lack of appropriate resources, social networks and skills ('digital capital'), combined with ongoing shortcomings in healthcare delivery, can compromise their ability to do this effectively. The paper concludes by offering tentative suggestions for remedying this situation.

New Digital Ways of Delivering Sex Education: A Practice Perspective

“…The increasing penetration of mobile phones, including internetenabled feature phones, 1 makes it possible for young people in Africa, across a range of different socioeconomic strata, to access the internet (see Hampshire et al 2015;Pfeiffer et al 2014). This is witnessed in the massive uptake of platforms such as Whatsapp, the Opera Mini mobile web browser and the South African instant messaging service, Mxit, making it possible for users to send and receive information at lower costs than standard SMS and web browsing.…”

“…Yet in many parts of the world, access to SRHR information is restricted, safeguarded by gatekeepers, or, if available, it comes too late and in inaccessible formats (Anthony 2011). At the same time, health systems tend to overlook adolescent health because adolescents are generally considered to be healthy and because health statistics seldom isolate adolescents, thus making their health needs invisible (Temmerman, Khosla and Say 2014;Berer 2014;Hampshire et al 2015, Patton et al 2014. Also, because the provision of these services to adolescents and young people is an acknowledgement of their sexual lives, which may run counter to prevailing religious or cultural ideologies that deny adolescent sexuality, there is often discomfort and reluctance about funding and enabling access to services.…”

Framework for dependable and pervasive eHealth services

“…For example, in some developing countries mobile phones are shared among people for health care [15]: proper security measures need to be adopted, since the univocal correspondence between user and owner may be lost.…”

“…Forms of access to health care (e.g., counseling) happen in developing countries using mobile phones [15]. In these cases, initial (simpler) forms of eHealth services may foster more inclusive health care provision globally.…”

Equipamento Médico Assistencial Para Análise De Turbidez Do Líquido Dialisado Peritoneal

“…Alguns estudos sugerem o uso de microcontroladores baseados em Arduíno para monitoramento e auxílio em tomadas de decisão [4], [5] em saúde. Neste mesmo sentido, propomos um Equipamento Médico Assistencial (EMA), conjugado com um aplicativo para smartphones Android, para análise da turbidez do líquido dialisado [6] .…”