Mobile Technologies for Public Health: Balancing the Local & Global

Recent years have seen a growing focus on participatory efforts towards development that begin at the grassroots levels and organize, possibly, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). There has remained, at the same time, also a focus on top-down efforts initiated by state actors or large global organizations, targeting similar development outcomes.

In this talk, she will discuss two video-centric public health care initiatives situated in India – one at the grassroots level and one at the global. The first is Projecting Health – a maternal health project set in rural Uttar Pradesh (India) – and relies on participatory video processes that work with the existing health system to disseminate health-related information to new mothers via frontline health workers. The second is HealthPhone – a platform that targets a universal approach and attempts to make all kinds of health information available on its website for the entire Indian population that needs it. She will describe both initiatives and draw on empirical findings to discuss benefits/drawbacks of both.

Neha Kumar
Assistant Professor
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs &
School of Interactive Computing