New media: The changing dynamics in mobile phone application in accelerating health care among the rural populations in Kenya

Abstract

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had health-care improvement as one of the pillars; however, a majority of the African countries were not able to achieve these goals and have now embarked on Sustainable Development Goals. The third objective of SDG aims to ensuring healthy lives and promotion of the well-being of all ages. Kenya has implemented two strategies aimed at influencing skilled facility care utilization: the provision of free maternity health services and the Beyond Zero Campaign. However, these strategies may not have achieved much due to lack of adequate and relevant information for the populations. Therefore, utilization of new media in disseminating health knowledge to populations may be an alternative to the traditional media and other channels of health knowledge dissemination which may not be in tandem with the ever-changing socioeconomic realities in the rural communities. To this end, this chapter seeks to assess the appropriation of mobile phone technology in accelerating the access to skilled facility health care, investigate the different types of health knowledge that can be accessed through the mobile phone, and assess the efficiency of the mobile phone in disseminating maternal health knowledge. The study will review available literature using a case study of Kenya.