Doctor Henry V, Olatunji Alabi, Jumare Abdul'azeez
Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Population & Family Health, New York, USA ; PRRINN-MNCH Program, Operations Research Unit, Abuja, Nigeria.
Online J Public Health Inform. 2012;4(3). doi: 10.5210/ojphi.v4i3.4288. Epub 2012 Dec 19.
Maternal and child health indicators are generally poor in Nigeria with the northern part of the country having the worst indicators than the southern part. Efforts to address maternal and health challenges in Nigeria include, among others, improvement in health and management information systems. We report on the experience of mobile phone technology in supporting the activities of a health and demographic surveillance system in northern Nigeria. Our experience calls for the need for the Nigerian Government, the mobile network companies, and the international community at large to consolidate their efforts in addressing the mobile network coverage and power supply challenges in order to create an enabling environment for socio-economic development particularly in rural and disadvantaged areas. Unless power and mobile network challenges are addressed, health interventions that rely on mobile phone technology will not have a significant impact in improving maternal and child health.
尼日利亚的妇幼健康指标总体较差，该国北部地区的指标比南部地区更糟糕。尼日利亚为应对孕产妇和健康挑战所做的努力包括，除其他外，改善卫生和管理信息系统。我们报告了手机技术在支持尼日利亚北部一个健康和人口监测系统活动方面的经验。我们的经验表明，尼日利亚政府、移动网络公司以及整个国际社会需要共同努力，应对移动网络覆盖和电力供应挑战，以便为社会经济发展创造有利环境，特别是在农村和贫困地区。除非解决电力和移动网络挑战，否则依赖手机技术的卫生干预措施在改善妇幼健康方面不会产生重大影响。
