South Africa
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A peer-led intervention to promote engagement in HIV care for men living with HIV in South Africa
Distance learning to improve maternal and child health in Ethiopia
- Progress stage
- Mar 2023 to Mar 2024
The local NGO Nuru Ethiopia and Health[e]Foundation are working on a project to improve maternal and child health in Ethiopia through online training and a digital application. The study funded by FID will allow to combine both programs and learning approaches.
Project deployed by:
Context
To improve access to health services, the Ethiopian government launched the Health Extension Program in 2003. This program relies on community-based Health Extension Workers to provide key health information to the population.
Albeit a well-established intervention, The Health Extension Program suffers from a relatively low staff capacity and a high turnover.
Although under-five child mortality is decreasing in Ethiopia, it remains stubbornly high. Providing health knowledge and information to women before and after childbirth could help reduce maternal and infant mortality.
Innovation
Nuru Ethiopia and Health[e]Foundation have decided to partner-up to improve the knowledge of Health Extension Workers as well as women’s on health care, nutrition and breastfeeding practices.
This consortium project, supported by the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, combines two technological solutions: an e-learning module and a digital application aiming to provide quality and continuous knowledge on maternal and child health. This blended learning solution is based on:
- A program previously developed by Nuru for pregnant women in Ethiopia
- The LUCY application created by Health[e]Foundation, tested and launched in Suriname in 2020, and currently expanded to Ethiopia and Kenya for pregnant women and mothers of newborns
FID is supporting this innovative collaboration between the two organizations and is funding a feasibility study and data collection needed to scale up in southern Ethiopia. FID is also supporting the development and optimization of the online module and digital application for further deployment in the country.
Results and learned lessons
In the first phase, a cohort of 101 women (made up of 21 women experiencing their first pregnancy, 33 women who had already been pregnant once or several times before, and 47 women with a child under the age of 5) trialled the LUCY app. 66% of the group found that it provided reliable information, particularly on the stages of pregnancy when a visit to a health center is required, or on personalized recommendations relating to menstruation. In addition, the 93 health extension workers who received training all stated that they would use the app if it was available to them in their daily work. They also asked if an additional tool could be integrated into the app to identify high-risk pregnancies.
In a second step, the prototype was validated through feedback:
- The app registered an active user base of more than 1,100 women. However, this figure does not take into account women who used the app via unregistered downloads through offline app sharing. 77% of midwife users highlighted the possibility of getting advice from the app before appointments with patients, while 69% reported that the app improved attendance to medical appointments.
- 62% recommended adding a voice assistance feature to the app.
This initiative highlighted the app's importance for pregnant women and healthcare professionals, but also underscored the challenges for the organization in adapting the LUCY app for those who do not have regular access to smartphones or the internet.
Going forward, the consortium comprised of Nuru and the Health[e]Foundation aims to assess the app's impact with a larger group of women to better prepare for its scale-up in Ethiopia and potentially other countries in the sub-region.
Projects
Projects funded by FID
