mhealth – Global Reproductive Health at Duke

mSaada User Testing with Community Health Volunteers in Kisumu Kenya

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 by Jacob StocksNo Comments

Together with Duke SRT students, undergraduate app developers, and Kenya-based members of the Center for Global Reproductive Health, I will be leading a pilot usability study of an integrated digital platform called mSaada. The goal of this platform, placed in the hands of community health volunteers (CHVs) during HPV-based cervical cancer screening, is to help facilitate the successful completion of the cervical cancer prevention cascade. This will be achieved by mSaada’s many features: patient education, protocol and counseling support for CHVs, results notification, service reminders, and patient tracking. Over the course of the summer, we will train CHVs on proper use of mSaada, allow them to use the app in a clinical setting, and gather periodic feedback through quantitative questionnaires and structured in-depth interviews. We aim to gain a strong understanding of user experience, acceptability, and feasibility of the mSaada platform within the context of Western Kenya. My interest in this project is multifactorial. First, by studying and working to combat...

Mhealth App User Training

June 17, 2019July 2, 2019 by Jacob StocksNo Comments

In order to ensure participants had a strong understanding of mSaada and the planned pilot usability study, members of the mSaada study team hosted a two-day training, June 6th and 7th, at the Kisumu Office of the Center for Global Reproductive Health. Twelve study participants, four researchers, and two research assistants were in attendance. The first day of the training began with a general overview of research, its importance, those involved, and a lengthy discussion of informed consent. After a tea break, we proceeded with a discussion of HPV and cervical cancer, and prevention, screening, and treatment strategies. In addition to lively audience participation during a session of review questions, each study participant displayed their understanding of the steps necessary to successfully complete HPV self-collection by demonstrating how to explain the process to a female client. Finally, the first day of training concluded with a 2-hour session on mhealth strategies and details of the planned mSaada pilot usability study. Day two of...

Introducing the New mSaada Mobile App for Community Health Volunteers

March 26, 2019March 27, 2019 by Stacey DixsonNo Comments

Guest Blog by Catie Grasse Meaning "help" in Swahili, the mobile "saada" application aims to improve the efficacy and efficiency of community health volunteers screening patients for cervical cancer in Kisumu, Kenya. This project is the extension of a previous project for the Duke class CS408: Delivering Software to Client, which pairs student developers and designers with a client team to build a specialized application. The mSaada developer team is composed of four Duke seniors: Our designer, Rachel Settle is a Computer Science major, Visual Media Studies minor, and pursuing the Information Science certificate. Working on the user experience is Carly Levi, a senior studying Computer Science and Global Health who is particularly interested in women's and reproductive health and hopes to use her background in technology to come up with effective interventions around the world. Focusing on the back-end database design is Catie Grasse, a senior majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Visual Media Studies. Also working on the...