Low-Cost Mobile Learning Solutions for Community Health Workers

Accredited Social Health Activists in India play a critical role in improving the access to healthcare services of rural populations. Despite their key contribution in Millennium Development Goals, they receive inadequate training and supervision. Traditional face to face training face challenges of infrastructure, management and cost. Existing research studies have highlighted the potential of alternative approaches e.g. mHealth for capacity building, however so far they mainly focus on providing job aids only.

In this thesis, we are exploring mobile technologies for building a distance learning platform for ASHAs; which is low cost, feasible and relevant to the local context. We propose our system that combines Internet and IVR technology in a novel way such that it allows the trainers to connect to ASHAs through a conference call and host structured real time interactions via a smartphone application. To evaluate the system we have conducted a field deployment of four weeks in the Haryana state, India. In collaboration with an NGO we provided a training intervention to 20 ASHAs on Home Based Newborn Care and found positive outcomes in terms of learning gains and acceptability by the stakeholders. We aim to build a comprehensive mobile learning solution that utilizes the available resources efficiently in order to produce larger impact.