FFF Seminar: Supporting Ongoing Training of Community Health Workers through Mobile-based Solutions in India

Abstract:

Community Health Workers (CHWs) play a vital role in providing a critical link to the broader public health infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries which are going through an acute shortage of health professionals and a high burden of diseases. However, CHWs are inadequately supported and face various challenges in delivering quality services. One of these is inadequate training. My PhD research responds to the call to empower CHWs by addressing the challenges in the face-to-face training mechanisms in rural India. To this end, we explored opportunities for alternative training mechanisms by designing, developing, and field deploying a low-cost mobile-based training tool that facilitates conducting online training over feature phones. Through our field trials, we test the feasibility and efficacy of the training tool, investigate peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and identify the training needs. My research primarily contributes to HCI4D and CSCW communities. In this talk, I will give an overview of my PhD work followed by the introduction of the research interest that I am currently exploring to start working on in my Postdoc.