Last week, nearly 4,000 delegates from 56 countries came together for the 4^th annual mHealth Summit to share approaches and discuss how to advance the field of mHealth to improve health outcomes. For the global health community this particular summit was a milestone because for the first time a global health track was included in the program.

 

Reshma Akhter, an 8-year-old from the Rayerbazar slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh, breaks through the ribbon during a race. She is one of 150 students attending the Gana Unnayan Pathshala School established by Hunger Project volunteers Shanti Rebaru & Tajima Majumdar in July 2003. Investing in women and girls is an essential component to economic development and building strong communities. In recognition of this, The Hunger Project-Bangladesh celebrates September 30th every year as National Girl Child Day.

© 2004 Syed Ziaul Habib Roobon, Courtesy of Photoshare

Are you a gender focal person in your organization looking to access programmatic evidence, tools for gender and health advocacy? Perhaps you are a program manager seeking to view guidance on integrating gender in HIV/AIDS, family planning, maternal health and youth programs or access gender training curricula and materials. Maybe you are a donor who wants to learn about key issues in gender mainstreaming and gender integration. Well, there is a new one-stop shop for you! The newly revised Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) Gender and Health Toolkit  is now available.

The Knowledge for Health (K4Health) project recently updated this electronic toolkit with input from leading gender experts. The result is a collection of carefully selected practical tools and instruments to help make programs and health systems more equitable and effective. Designed to move health practitioners, program mangers and policy makers from awareness and commitment to direct application and practice, the toolkit is a treasure trove of applied resources. This new IGWG Gender and Health Toolkit is a companion to the IGWG website and has the same goal: improvement of reproductive health/HIV/AIDS outcomes and sustainable development through the promotion of gender equity within population, health, and nutrition programs. 

It’s not possible to carry hundreds of DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys) reports to every meeting, or even sort through all of those PDFs on your laptop. Many program managers and policymakers in developing countries don’t have a full library of DHS reports or reliable access to an Internet connection to visit the MEASURE DHS website. Yet the expectation is that policy- and program-related decisions be data-driven, based on the evidence provided through research like the Demographic and Health Surveys.

The MEASURE DHS Mobile App

Luckily the rapidly growing use of mobile phones, including smart phones, has opened up a new channel for reaching DHS data users, both in Washington, DC, and in developing countries across the world. According to Pingdom, 15% of Africa’s internet browsing in May 2012 came from mobile devices, an increase of more than 150% from 2010. Now these users have an easy tool for accessing the most basic DHS information: the MEASURE DHS Mobile app.

MEASURE DHS mobile provides national-level data for 25 key indicators across 90 countries, including fertility, family planning use, vaccination, childhood mortality, nutrition, HIV testing and prevalence, maternal health, ITN use, and some basic background data such as literacy, education, and access to electricity. The data can be viewed in a chart or a table to compare across countries or over time in countries that have had more than one DHS survey. These key indicators can also be viewed on a map.

Bridging, straddling, and closing the “digital divide” are recurring themes in international development, where the Internet is seen as a portal to health, economic, educational, and social benefits. With an Internet connection on a mobile phone, tablet, or PC, users can tap into eLearning resources, access health information, and exchange knowledge.

Map of Internet cables

While the potential resources that can be gained from Internet access are enormous, Internet users in developing countries still stand on the other side of a deep divide that has not been bridged by devices and wireless signals. The speed divide is one component of Internet access that doesn’t end with physical access to a PC and Internet connection.