mHealth outcomes for pregnant mothers in Malawi: a capability perspective

ABSTRACT

Reducing maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 75% by the year 2015 was the primary target for Millennium Development Goal 5. However, between 1990 and 2015 the MMR only fell by 50%. Sustainable Development Goal 3 aims to reduce the global MMR to 0.1% by the year 2030. Mobile technology for healthcare service delivery (mHealth) is being implemented in many developing countries to address challenges faced in maternal health in trying to achieve this goal. Existing literature on mHealth tends to focus mainly on design and implementation of mHealth projects, a few studies have evaluated mHealth interventions to assess health outcomes. This study evaluates the effectiveness of mHealth based on consumers' capabilities, and investigates how mHealth contributes towards social change and human development using the capability approach theoretical framework. The findings show that the use of mobile phones to access health information and healthcare services can generate a number of opportunities for women in maternal health, not only for health purposes but also for their informational, economic and psychological wellbeing. However, the generation of the opportunities and realisation of the outcomes is mediated by a myriad of personal, social, and environmental factors that are either enabling or restrictive.

KEYWORDS:

• mHealth
• maternal health
• capability approach
• developing countries
• Malawi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mphatso Nyemba-Mudenda is a Health Informatics Specialist based in Lusaka, Zambia. Her research specializes in ICT for development (ICT4D), Mobile for Development (M4D), and ICT for Health (ICT4H). Mphatso received her PhD in Information Systems from the University of Cape Town (2015) and has published on eHealth, mHealth and social implications of ICTs. Her ongoing research focuses on mHealth innovations, design and implementation of electronic health record systems, and health information systems security in developing countries.

Wallace Chigona is a Professor in Information Systems at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research focuses on the use of ICTs for human development and ICT policy. He has researched on the use and impact of ICTs amongst the disadvantaged communities in different African Countries. Prof Chigona has published and is currently on the editorial boards of Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC) as well as on the African Journal of Information Systems. Prof Chigona is rated as an Established Researcher by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). He is currently a member of (i) UNESCO/NetExplo Advisory Board; (ii) the Communication Policy Research for Global South.

Notes

1 Airtel is the mobile provider with the larger market share of the two networks available in Malawi.

2 Revelation 13: 15–18

15 The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.