Sahoo S
Access to health care has always remained a major challenge across most of the developing countries. In India, where nearly 68.85 per cent of the population reside in rural areas, public health service faces many technological and operational challenges. Similarly, Odisha, being considered a poor state and having a rural population of 83.31 per cent also bears the brunt of health divide to a great extent. No doubt, the government has initiated several schemes to address public health issues, but lack of awareness among the stakeholders, inadequate physical infrastructure and geographical barriers have affected a lot in health care delivery. However, rapid adoption of mobile telephone technology in rural areas has brought forth newer possibilities in health communication to bridge the health divide. According to the data given by TRAI, Odisha has a tele-density of 81.08 per cent as on July 31, 2017. Hence, mobile communication has a greater potentiality to be exploited as dependable and effective ICT media for public health. At the same time, the growing sophistication of the mobile networks – offering high speed data and cheaper but powerful handsets – has come with the possibility of greater personalisation and citizen-focused public health and medical care. This paper aimed to explore the multiple roles and effectiveness of mobile communication for the delivery function of public health programmes related to child and maternal health care. Apart from a discussion on audio-visual contents and mobile applications, the study, based on literature and interviews, has also analysed how the health services is improved by using prompts and reminders through voice calls and text messages for the health workers.
Bridging
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