The following is a guest post by by Dr. Olaoluwatomi Lamikanra, a Public Health Practitioner.

By Olaoluwatomi Lamikanra. Since the introduction of mobile phones in Nigeria, the number of users has increased exponentially and usage is pretty much found in both rural and urban areas.

With regards to the internet, Nigeria has about 43 million users (total population over 155 million) which far exceeds by more than double the next African country on the list-Egypt.¹

 
There are many projects associated with mobile health in Nigeria and with the exponential growth of mobile and internet users; there is an ever increasing market. Different sectors of the economy which have an impact on the health of the populace also stand to gain a lot from the introduction of mHealth initiatives. Water, Sanitation, Agriculture, Finance and Development are a few of the sectors. In Kenya, the introduction of the mPESA, a mobile phone application where moneys can be sent via mobile phones all around the country has solved the problems of money transfers. No longer do people in rural areas have to wait until someone is visiting from the city before money arrives. They receive the money as soon as it is sent from a PESA center. At a recent WaterHackathon event organised by CCHub in Lagos, one o f the tools suggested for Water development was a mobile system to facilitate the sharing of water resources in hard hit areas.²

Examples of some projects already in place include Mobile Community based Surveillance.mCBS is a mobile platform which is given to Traditional Birth Attendants to report vital maternal and child health indicators in real time using mobile phones. Using texts designed for this purpose the TBA can transmit alerts to nearby health officials who can respond immediately thus reducing delays in reaching appropriate care at a facility.³ Other mHealth projects currently being developed in Nigeria  is being collated by Ime Asangasi (@Imeasangasi- twitter handle) here.

REFERENCES:

1. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm (accessed 26th December 2011)
2. http://www.cchubnigeria.com/watermeetup (accessed 26th December 2011)
3. http://ehealthnigeria.org/where-we-work/list-of-implementations/mobile-community-based-surveillance-mcbs/

The following is  a guest post by Wendy D. Lynch, PhD the Founder, Lynch Consulting and Co-Director, Center for Consumer Choice in Health Care, Altarum Institute. For 25 years, Dr. Wendy Lynch has been making the connection between human and business performance.  Her career has included roles as faculty at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Senior Scientist at Health Decisions International, and Principal at Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

By Wendy Lynch. In any other industry, minority and elderly discrimination would be front-page news. A recent study confirms elderly and minority customers get higher-cost hospital care than other more affluent white customers and are more often exposed to harmful, even deadly outcomes (1, 2). Fact: care for these patients will cost significantly more, yet their health outcomes and personal safety will be compromised. But in health care, it is not news.

This is the nature of health care disparity. But it reveals an even more troubling issue we rarely discuss: information, choice, and control. Not only do these patients receive substandard, over-priced care (1), they likely don’t even know it! The system limits information, limits choice, and offers patients little control over their options. In this and a subsequent blog, we will explore how lack of choice and control institutionalize the very disparities we aim to eliminate.

Disparities Are Real
It’s hard to dispute the facts; there are huge variations in health status and health resources among U.S. citizens. Comparing the most and least fortunate, differences are evident in every category: prevalence of risk factors and chronic illnesses (3); the availability of high-quality care (2); rates of preventive services (4); rates of premature mortality (5); and regular sources of care (6).

Nor are people surprised to learn that health disparities are closely linked to disparities in income and education (7). Health and health care delivery are worst among ethnic minorities, rural and poor communities, immigrants, and the elderly (7, 8). Despite decades of attention and investment by private and public agencies, the distance between the “haves” and “have-nots” remains as wide as ever (9). (more…)

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Shannah Koss

Dear Colleagues,

Health Information Technology and the substantial HITECH investment are a critical part of putting the U.S. health care industry and the U.S. consumer population on the 21^st century path to improved health and health care. The investment however is almost exclusively focused on enabling the provider infrastructure. We need a mirrored infrastructure that will help patients and caregivers navigate, access and understand the growing health information universe and what it means to them.

The newly announced “Putting the IT in TransITions” initiative is a critical opportunity to help consumers better access and use their own healthcare information, but only if it is put in context and made truly consumer friendly. This means not just plain language but with tools, translation and interpretation resources that make it actionable.

The two-page project summary “Patients and Caregivers the 1^st Step Not the Last Mile” describes an initiative that would explore how to enable a parallel consumer-facing infrastructure that complements and readily connects to the provider-facing infrastructure. Although ultimately there will be one shared infrastructure the timing and challenges of the emerging provider connectivity runs the risk of leaving consumers as the last mile.

We are stepping up to the IT in TransITions two-week challenge with a deadline of October 28, 2011 by seeking broad support for the project and its goals. We have many committed partners and we need your help in emphasizing to HHS and the industry leadership the critical importance of the consumer component to their efforts.

If you can lend your name and/or your organization’s name to this letter of support please email kossoncare@starpower.net by Thursday October 27th.

Your information, exactly as you provide it, will appear after the following statement: We the undersigned agree that successful care transitions need increased consumer IT support and focus consistent with the goals of the Patient and Caregiver Gateway project.

The following is a guest post by Dr. Jessie Gruman and ran on the Better Health on October 14th.

There is excitement in the air about how mobile phones are the breakthrough technology for changing health behavior.  Last Saturday, I was convinced this must be true. In two short hours, I:

• Skimmed the NYTimes op-ed, You Love your iPhone. Literally, that (questionably) claimed that functional MRIs show that our brains react to our iPhones the same way they do to the proximity of someone we love.
• Received an email on my iPhone from NYC Health Business Leaders inviting me to come to a meeting: Is Mobile Health the Next Killer App?
• Came across this podcast on how mobile technology is going to vastly change care for seniors with chronic conditions.
• Read a beautiful review of the behavior change literature that asks the question Is Mobile the Prescription for Sustained Behavior Change?
• Received a text about the highly anticipated release of the iPhone 5.
• And came across the entire kitchen crew of a fancy restaurant staring into/talking on their mobile phones.

Now I’m sure that the seductive power of our mobile phones hasn’t escaped your notice. Certainly, if you are concerned about people engaging more fully in their health and health care, you have seen the thousands of apps that intend to exploit the combination of widely available mobile phones with advances in Web-enabled technology as the new best way to spark and sustain health behavior change.

I love the optimism that has driven the development of these apps to date.  The theoretical reasoning of the behavioral scientists that finds mobile apps to be a potential game-changer – this is why this technology is different and what it offers above all other technologies and approaches — is subtle and compelling. And I love imagining the personalized guidance and support that will be possible to deliver to us once these theories are transformed into more sophisticated apps for our mobile devices. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Janice Lynch Schuster who  works at the Altarum Institute, a new voice in the field of aging and end of life issues.

By Janice Lynch Schuster. Sunday night, simultaneously tired and wired from my participation in a 39-mile fundraising walk for breast cancer, I attended my daughter’s one-year anniversary meeting to celebrate her achievement: She has one year of drug-free living. The ceremony was moving and painful, joyful and sad. She talked about her struggle, her journey and moments of arrival, insights into her addiction and awareness of ways to overcome it. She talked about people in the room who had helped her along the way, who had called her on it when she tried to bamboozle them, who had loved and supported her as she worked to find other ways to cope with a world in which she had trouble living by the rules. Others in the room testified about their experiences with her—her determination to stay sober had inspired theirs; the fact that she had made it for a year gave them hope to reach similar goals; her enthusiasm and dedication, they said, was electrifying. To other teens in the meeting, she was a role model. She was—and is—a beloved part of this community of addicts and alcoholics. The outpouring of love and affection these people have for my daughter made me understand more fully and deeply just what it means to be on a journey with a community of like-minded people, and how important it is to be surrounded by such people when the journey is long and difficult, when there are barriers to be overcome and milestones to reach.

This time last year, we were in a very different place.  Aware that my daughter was self-destructing, I admitted her to a rehab facility; she was furious with me and told me our relationship was over, that I was not her mother, and she would never be my daughter again. She was livid and, until I stopped answering the phone, would call me daily with her fury. I was heartbroken—my beautiful girl, so smart and talented and funny—had been waylaid by a disease that has plagued our family for generations. She was 17, at the end of her junior year in high school, and at a time when I had expected her to be visiting colleges, studying for the SATs, buying her class ring, we were sitting in a locked room, crying and angry and overwhelmed by what was happening. The weekend I checked her in to the rehab facility coincided with the annual 39-mile walk, and despite my sorrow, I felt obligated to walk. So many people had donated so much money to me, and although the funds were committed whether I showed up or not, I felt compelled to go along with my plan. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Dr. Jessie Gruman. This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog

“My doctor can titrate my chemotherapy to the milligram but can’t tell me when I am going to die,” a friend who was struggling with his treatment for cancer complained to me a couple years ago.

Had he lived, he might have been reassured by the announcement last week of a new scale that allows clinicians to estimate the time remaining to people with advanced cancer.  He was spending his final days “living by the numbers” of his white blood cell count, the amount and size of his tumors and suspicious lesions, the dosage of various drugs and radiation treatments. And he was peeved about what he saw as a critical gap in those numbers.  He believed (hoped?) that because his cancer was quantifiable and the treatment was quantifiable, that the time remaining should be similarly quantifiable.  He needed that information to plan how to use the time that remained.

Many of us would make a different choice about knowing how long we will live when we are similarly ill.  But most of us are attracted to the certainty we attach to the numbers that precisely represent aspects of our diseases. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda who is General Secretary, World YWCA  and Dr. Nalini Saligram the Founder and CEO of Arogya World. It was originally posted on The Huffington Post on September 6th.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which include cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lung disease, and mental health are one of the greatest health and development challenges of the century, responsible collectively for 2/3 of all deaths worldwide. Though all people the world over are susceptible to the threat of these chronic diseases, this is a women’s health rights and empowerment issue because these diseases impact girls and women differently. At the same time, women are a crucial part of the solution to this crisis.

Arogya World, World YWCA and other organizations have joined forces to form the Women for a Healthy Future movement. We are mobilizing women and men from around the world to sign a petition demanding that world leaders reduce the vulnerability of women and children to NCDs.

As advocates for women’s right to health and empowerment, we call on the world leaders during the forthcoming United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs to consider the following critical factors related to women and NCDs:

1. NCDs have a direct impact on women’s health
NCDs are the #1 killer of women. A staggering 50,000 women lose their lives to NCDs every single day. More than 1,000 women die from cardiovascular disease, one of the four main NCDs, every hour.

Women are uniquely affected by NCDs. New research published in The Lancet (Aug 2011) shows that for women, especially pregnant women, the harmful effects of smoking are even higher than for men. When it comes to coronary heart disease, smoking is 25% more dangerous for women. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Karen Orloff Kaplan the CEO of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.

TEAL is on trend this September. Not only is teal a top fashion color for fall 2011, it’s the color of ovarian cancer awareness—and September is national ovarian cancer awareness month. Here’s how you can help raise awareness of this disease.

To support ovarian cancer awareness you can get involved in the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance’s United States of Teal campaign. The goal of the campaign is to have every state in America teal—which happens when state legislators pledge their support for ovarian cancer awareness. Twenty-four states are already teal—visit www.unitedstatesofteal.org to see if your state supports women with ovarian cancer.

The website also shows how you can contact your state legislators and urge them to pledge their support to the ovarian cancer community. We need your help to raise awareness of the symptoms, and expand federal research to improve treatments and support the development of a desperately needed screening test. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Janice Lynch Schuster who  works at the Altarum Institute, a new voice in the field of aging and end of life issues. This post orginally ran on July 14th on Health AGEnda.

By Janice Lynch Schuster. When I was a little girl, country singer Glen Campbell had a variety show on television called “The Glen Campbell Good Time Hour.” As I remember it, it was a good time; in my young imagination, I often confused him with my father, who I thought was just as handsome and talented and fun as Glen. I loved his songs and wanted to learn to play guitar so I could be more like him.

Sadly, Mr. Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’ disease. As most people know, Alzheimer’s is the primary cause of dementia, a gradual loss of brain function that becomes more common as we age. As the disease slowly and insidiously strips us of our thoughts and memories, it strips us of our lives and torments our loved ones in a grim process that can take years to unfold. Mr. Campbell’s decision to put a face on this awful disease by continuing to tour is a mark of real courage and heart. I don’t know how long he’ll last on the road—and early reviews, pre-diagnosis, panned him for being so forgetful and bumbling—but I hope that road takes him into some kind of good night, Rhinestone Cowboy.

Not many celebrities let us come so close. In our wild pop culture pursuit of public figures, we are eager to hear the details of their private lives—we buy up People and Star and Us by the ream. We want to know who’s pregnant, who’s with whom, who’s sleeping where, who’s in rehab, and who’s out. We want to hear about celebrities’ brave battles against one illness or another—bipolar disease or addiction, cancer or diabetes. We are thrilled when a gaunt but apparently cured Michael Douglas emerges from chemotherapy. We are sad when Patrick Swayze falls to pancreatic cancer.  And we cry when Clarence Clemmons succumbs to a stroke. We collectively mourn the deaths each week of various celebrities whose lives, we think, touched our own. (more…)

The following is a guest post by WomanCare Global CEO Saundra Pelletier. Besides serving as the founding CEO of WomanCare Global, Saundra is an international marketing expert, published author, keynote speaker and executive coach.

By Saundra Pelletier. In 1965, Griswold v. Connecticut gave a married woman the right to use birth control to prevent or delay pregnancy as she saw fit. This guarantee of a basic human right led to other reforms that allowed millions more American women to decide the direction of their own reproductive lives.  This summer, we are proud to see another key reform go through: starting next year, the Affordable Care Act will allow even more women in the United States to be in charge of their own health by requiring new health plans to provide free birth control without a co-payment. These are hard-fought wins for women’s health and for women’s rights of which we can all be proud, but sadly the ability of a woman to choose when and whether to become pregnant is far from assured in other parts of the world.

Pause for a moment and imagine you’re not American, but from Sub-Saharan Africa – Ethiopia for example. You are 20 years old and have four children – the first of which you had when you were 15 and newly married. You’re worried about becoming pregnant again. You tried to get birth control once, but arrived at the clinic only to find the shelves bare and no way to access any form of birth control.  The thought of another pregnancy, whether by a husband who won’t take no for an answer, or by a stranger who might force his way upon you while making your way to fetch water for the family is overwhelming. You’re not in great health, and another pregnancy would take its toll on your weakened body. The chances are high that you might not survive pregnancy or labor to be able to take care of your family.

Globally, 215 million women would like to be able to prevent or delay pregnancy, but do not have access to the supplies that would allow them to take control of their lives. As American women, we know from our own experience that the ability to make our own fertility decisions has made an immeasurable impact on our own lives. For women in the developing world, access to reproductive health supplies would save lives and improve health, as well as the economic and social well-being of families and communities.

(more…)

The following is a post by Dr. Jessie Gruman from the Center for Advancing Health. This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog.

“There is a better way – structural reforms that empower patients with greater choices and increase the role of competition in the health-care marketplace.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)August 3, 2011

The highly charged political debates about reforming American health care have provided tempting opportunities to rename the people who receive health services.  But because the impetus for this change has been prompted by cost and quality concerns of health care payers, researchers and policy experts rather than emanating from us out of our own needs, some odd words have been called into service.  Two phrases commonly used to describe us convey meanings that mischaracterize our experiences and undervalue our needs: “empowered patient” and “health care consumer.”

As one who has done serious time as a patient and who spends serious time listening to talks and reading the literature that use these words to describe us, I ask you to reconsider their use.

“Empowered patient” The fabrication of the verb “to empower” from the noun “power” was used in the civil rights and community development movements to describe a benevolent bestowal of influence on disenfranchised individuals and groups by those who had previously excluded them.  When used in relation to health care, the word perpetuates the idea that we are passive entities, waiting to be gratefully endowed by our clinician or a new policy with the right and ability to act on our own behalf.  Our “empowerment” takes place not as a result of our own will or preference, but rather because we have been given permission to act in a different way by some external agent. (more…)

The following is a guest post from blogger and writer Amanda Kidd. She is a regular follower of healthy living her health guide includes all the health related topics. Amongst all she likes to write on sexual health a lot:

Sexual urge or the libido is a natural phenomenon in men and women alike. It is widely believed and understood that couples enjoy intimacy more in their young age rather than in matured stage of their lives. Though apparently this may be a well accepted notion and may also look very true, the research indicates otherwise.

Sexual urge in older women, or middle aged women, is a subject of immense interest and research amongst the scientists and researchers all over the world. What happens to the sexual drive of a woman when she crosses the threshold of 30 and enters into the middle age era? Does she feel bored? Does her desire begin to wane? Or is it that sexual urge in women has no age bar? And at any point in time they remain equally active, if not more than the man?

An article published in a health magazine in UK suggests that middle aged women show more urge for indulging in sex than their younger counterparts. Elaborating further on the sexual drives and sexual health of older women, the article claims that these women are also more willing than younger women to have sexual escapade!

(more…)

The following was originally posted on Masters In Public Health on July 13th.

Wherever there are citizens who are passionate about improving the public health of their communities, the potential exists to build a powerful movement for change. Usually, these individuals are activists in social movements and in voluntary associations including civic organizations, women’s associations and labor organizations. But, their passions can move mountains, as you’ll learn from our list of 10 historic movements that improved worldwide public health.

1. Cancer: On May 22, 1913, the American Society for the Control of Cancer was created at a meeting of ten doctors and five laymen. At that time, a cancer diagnosis amounted to near certain death. Rarely mentioned in public, this taboo disease was steeped in fear and denial. In 1936, Marjorie G. Illig, an ASCC field representative and chair of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs Committee on Public Health, made an extraordinary suggestion. She proposed creating a legion of volunteers whose sole purpose was to wage war on cancer. The Women’s Field Army, as this organization came to be called, was an enormous success. Today, the American Cancer Society continues the fight against cancer, and many groups — including the Susan G. Komen Foundation — join the fight.

2. Health Insurance: The U.S. is the only industrialized nation that does not have national health insurance. As early as 1915, the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) proposed a national insurance system that would cover medical care, sick pay, maternity benefits, and funeral expenses for low-paid workers and their dependents. To this day, despite four other battles for national health insurance, about 16 percent of the population is uninsured. However, the Affordable Care Act recently brought an end to some of the worst abuses of the insurance industry, bringing new rights and benefits to Americans.

3. Hull House: Jane Addams, in 1889, worked with Chicago’s neediest families and helped them to become full participants in their communities. Today, the Jane Addams Hull House Association continues to provide services for child welfare and foster care, domestic violence victims, education and literacy, homelessness, eldercare and youth. They even provide workforce development and small business development. (more…)

The following is a guest post by Margaret Anderson, executive director of FasterCures/The Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions, an “action tank” working to improve the medical research system and speed up the time it takes to get important new medicines from discovery to patients. Margaret also serves as vice president of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, board member for the Council for American Medical Innovation and the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, and member of the Prostate Cancer Foundation Government Affairs Committee and the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Drug Discovery, Development and Translation. In 2011, the Clinical Research Forum recognized her with an award for leadership in public advocacy.

By Margaret Anderson. What’s missing today in the medical research system is a sense of urgency and a willingness to take risks. When it comes to developing new therapies for deadly and debilitating diseases, it takes too long, costs too much, and patients are left wondering – where are the cures? Last year only 21 new molecular entities were approved by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the fewest approved since 2007.  Can we honestly say that this is the kind of return we should be getting on our multi-billion dollar investment in scientific discovery?

Pharma and biotech companies, along with the federal government, provide the majority of funding for biomedical research in the U.S., however there is another group of nonprofit disease research foundations known as “venture philanthropies” that are bringing a sense of urgency to the medical research community and having an outsized effect on R&D.

Although they comprise only a small share of overall R&D spending in the United States (roughly three percent) these nimble, outcomes-focused organizations are making the high-risk investments that are moving promising science forward and, in doing so, increasing the likelihood that other parties will also invest.  In particular, venture philanthropy resources are helping to bridge valley of death – the gap between a promising discovery in the lab and the point at which a company is willing to pick it up and move its development forward.  This has traditionally been where many good ideas in the drug development pipeline drop off due to funding and knowledge gaps, and the influx of venture philanthropy support has been invaluable in ensuring forward progress. (more…)