UN Proclaims the Potential of mHealth at its General Assembly Session
The United Nations is currently meeting for its 66th session of the General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City. On Monday, September 19, the current President of the General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, called on world leaders to embrace mobile technologies in their efforts towards disease control and prevention. Speaking at an awards ceremony during the Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases, he proclaimed the potential of mHealth towards achieving the goals of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—those of reducing hunger, poverty, maternal and child mortality, and the spread of preventable diseases by 2015. “Indeed, there is growing evidence that the use of these technologies can be a critical component of some aspects of health. I fully believe that information and communications technologies can enable countries to meet the 2015 deadline.”
“Only five years ago, who would have imagined that today a woman in sub-Saharan Africa could use a mobile phone to access health information on bringing her pregnancy safely to term, or that today a young person in the Middle East could use a mobile phone to help manage diabetes” remarked the President.
At the same two-day meeting, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the adoption of a multi-pronged campaign to address the known risk factors that contribute to the four main groups of non-communicable diseases (NCD) – cardiovascular diseases, cancers, respiratory diseases, and diabetes. The campaign should address public health efforts to influence the behaviors that contribute to these often preventable diseases, such as smoking, alcohol use, and diet. “Non-communicable diseases are a threat to development….[they] hit the poor and vulnerable particularly hard, and drive them deeper into poverty,” Ki-moon added.
The Secretary-General cited statistics from the World Health Organization that NCDs cause 63% of all deaths, and will increase by 17% worldwide in the next decade—and by 24% in Africa. Al-Nasser commented, “the global community must work together to monitor, reduce exposure to risks, and strengthen health care for people with non-communicable diseases.” Mobile health will play an important role in the UN’s efforts to prevent, diagnose, and manage the symptoms of these diseases globally, especially in the most vulnerable corners of the developing world.
56,313 Healthier Kids: Testing & Evaluation (Part 2)
If you’re like me and not a public health expert, you may not understand how much work goes into accurately measuring and analyzing the success of a de-worming campaign like ours. I thought it would be interesting to highlight some of the procedures undertaken in our recent study. Below are sections pulled from the report based on laboratory analysis and surveying.
We carried out an evaluation of the project by conducting questionnaires to school headteachers and pupils and examined stool and urine from 250 children from 10 schools who had participated in the deworming programme.
Urine filtration
Children were asked to urinate into a wide-mouthed plastic container. After stirring, urine was drawn into a plastic syringe, the volume measured, and the urine passed through a filter holder containing a Nucleopore TM filter of2.5mm diameter and 12μm pore size. Subsequently, the syringe was half-filled with air and this was passed through the filter to ensure the passage of all urine. The membrane was then removed with forceps and scanned at low magnification(x4) with a microscope.
Visual Examination
Macrohaematuria was used to measure heavy infection/high morbidity. Presence of blood in urine is a good indicator of pathological conditions in the bladder. This can also assess the potential of anaemia in the children in endemic area. Any child with urine-which was red (or pink) in colour was regarded as positive.
Interview and questionnaires
A simple standard questionnaire was administered to a sample of 500 respondents in 10 primary schools. The study population was drawn from the 58 Primary schools with an enrollment of 56,313 pupils in Ganze and Vitengeni Divisions in Kilifi district. We used both purposive and random sampling to identify the study area, schools and the respondents. The criteria for selection of the 10 schools and 500 respondents were done through the zoning of schools to ensure equitable representation. We also considered acceptability and accessibility. Ballot papers were prepared for random sampling of the schools while school registers were used to identify respondents from which sampling was done. A qualitative questionnaire was administered to all respondents including teachers by the Public health officers from the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation.
It thus gives us confidence that we’re measuring our performance accurately and in turn truly helping the community in our work. If you have any feedback on ways we could improve or enhance our evaluation process for future work, we would love to hear from you! You can leave your comments on this post, or find us on Twitter at @kilifikids.
