An IASH Work-in-Progress Seminar given by Prof. Janan Dietrich (Associate Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa).
Background
Over one million children are born in South Africa each year (Statistics South Africa, 2018) with two thirds of these newborns being raised in poverty (United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF], 2009). The development of these children will likely be compromised because they may not receive all of the essential care and services they need to develop optimally (Luby et al., 2013). Ideally, all children born in South Africa, should benefit equally and optimally from early childhood development services – good nutrition and healthcare, support to their primary caregivers, social services, and opportunities for early learning – from before birth (UNICEF, 2015).
Building off the successes of their MomConnect programme, the South African National Department of Health launched an application (app) version/e-version of the Road to Health booklet in the online Play-store in February 2019 (National Department of Health, 2019). The Road to Health mobile app (RTHA) is a digitised version of the National Department of Health Road to Health book which is provided to each baby at birth to provide advice on how to raise a happy, healthy child.
The RTHA exists as a digital app for download and use on an android enabled smartphone. The RTHA allows for interactions between health care workers, health care services and caregivers. The overall intent of the RTHA is to allow a parent/caregiver to view childcare information and to update their child’s health record. As the RTHA will store private information, special focus, has been given to compliance to the protection of private information act (Information Regulator South Africa, 2013), both for patient information protection as well as NDoH liability. The improved ability to track patient outcomes while ensuring quality of care are key issues for the National Health Insurance (Information Regulator South Africa, 2013; White, 2015). Although the RTHA is available for use, much work is required to assess user feedback and to gain information that will inform the marketing and improve the use of the RTHA and its content.
Study Aims
1. To determine the acceptability and usability of the RTHA by conducting 30 serial interviews with adult pregnant women and women with children under five years.
2. Determine preferences to develop a discrete choice experiment that will inform the optimal method/s to market the RTHA to new users and maintain interaction with existing users.
Please click HERE to go to the online talk