Khatun F, Heywood AE, Hanifi SM, Rahman MS, Ray PK, Liaw ST and Bhuiya A (2017) Gender differentials in readiness and use of mHealth services in a rural area of Bangladesh, BMC health services research, 17:573, DOI: 10.1186/s12913-017-2523-6
Traditional gender roles result in women lagging behind men in the use of modern technologies, especially in developing countries. Although there is rapid uptake of mobile phone use in Bangladesh, investigation of gender differences in the ownership, access and use of mobile phones in general and mHealth in particular has been limited. This paper presents gender differentials in the ownership of mobile phones and knowledge of available mHealth services in a rural area of Bangladesh.
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Khatun F, Heywood AE, Ray PK, Bhuiya A, Liaw S-T (2016) Community readiness for adopting mHealth in rural Bangladesh: A qualitative exploration, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 93, pp 49–56, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2016.05.010
There are increasing numbers of mHealth initiatives in middle and low income countries aimed at improving health outcomes. Bangladesh is no exception with more than 20 mobile health (mHealth) initiatives in place. A recent study in Bangladesh examined community readiness for mHealth using a framework based on quantitative data. Given the importance of a framework and the complementary role of qualitative exploration, this paper presents data from a qualitative study which complements findings from the quantitative study.
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Khatuna F, Heywood AE, Ray PK, SMA Hanifi, Bhuiya A, Liaw ST (2015) Determinants of readiness to adopt mHealth in a rural community of Bangladesh, International Journal of Medical Informatics, Volume 84, Issue 10, Pages 847–856, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2015.06.008
Evidence in favour of mHealth for healthcare delivery in settings where trained health workforce is limited or unavailable is accumulating. With rapid growth in access to mobile phones and an acute shortage of health workforce in Bangladesh, mHealth initiatives are increasing with more than 20 current initiatives in place. “Readiness” is a crucial prerequisite to the successful implementation of telehealth programs. However, systematic assessment of the community readiness for mHealth-based services in the country is lacking. This article reports on a recent study describing the influence of community readiness for mHealth of a rural Bangladesh community.
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Khan NUZ, Rasheed S, Sharmin T, Ahmed T, Mahmood SS, Khatun F, Hanifi SMA, Hoque S, Iqbal M and Bhuiya A (2015) Experience of using mHealth to link village doctors with physicians: lessons from Chakaria, Bangladesh, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 15:62, doi:10.1186/s12911-015-0188-9
Bangladesh is facing serious shortage of trained health professionals. In the pluralistic healthcare system of Bangladesh, formal health care providers constitute only 5 % of the total workforce; the rest are informal health care providers. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly seen as a powerful tool for linking the community with formal healthcare providers. This study assesses an intervention that linked village doctors (a cadre of informal health care providers practising modern medicine) to formal doctors through call centres from the perspective of the village doctors who participated in the intervention.
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