The Effectiveness of Technology-based Intervention for Positive Behavioural Change to Promote Health Seeking Behaviour among Rural and Tribal Communities

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, mobile phones have quickly evolved from being a tool of communication to a key agent of social development because of its widespread reach in urban as well as rural areas, especially in the under-served communities. The underserved communities refer to populations which are disadvantaged because of their lack of ability to access care, ability to pay, ability to access comprehensive healthcare, or other disparities for reasons of race, caste, religion, gender, language group or social or economic status. Mobile phone-based information and communication technologies (ICTs) have proven to be significantly beneficial for this section of society and communities - those living in remote and media-dark areas, people who have mostly remained deprived of critical health-related information - by spreading awareness, facilitating interaction and engagement, which in turn leads to adapting of healthy practices, and strengthening a health-seeking behaviour among the target communities. The secondary effect of this change is clearly reflected in economic and social development as well as health indicators of these families. This paper evaluates the efficacy of the mobile phone-based intervention in spreading awareness about maternal and child health, during the time of COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when physical outreach by health workers to contact pregnant women and lactating mothers was significantly hindered due to restrictions in movement and face to face meetings. The digital media outreach mechanisms aided by ICTs proved to be a strong alternative in this scenario, which can be demonstrated by the wide uptake of this service among the target communities. © 2022 IEEE.