"Community informatics": Charting new directions in ICT4H for maternal and child healthcare

• Main Authors: Ona, Sherwin E., Angeles, Sarah
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: Information storage and retrieval systems—Maternal and infant welfare; Maternal and infant welfare—Philippines
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/8578
• Institution: De La Salle University

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remains a daunting challenge for the Philippines. The WHO (2004) and Unicef estimate that 11 Filipino women die every day due to pregnancy related complications. This phenomenon is widely attributed to the inequitable access to health services and education. Stressing the need to prioritize universal access to health services especially for the marginalized, the Aquino Health Agenda (2010-2016) highlights the need to specifically address the challenges posed by maternal health and child mortality through a resource oriented, government led approach. However, due to the complex and persistent nature of these challenges, the paper calls for a new paradigm, a holistic approach that subscribes to the tenets societal inclusion and the transformational role of ICT. Adhering to the e-Transformation concept of treating information as resources and ICT as enabling tools along with social cohesion and collaborative approach at the grassroots, the paper uses the concepts on social innovation and community informatics to understand the dynamics of maternal and child health care in local communities. Furthermore, the study intends to uncover the dynamics of community practices on maternal child health and through a deductive research approach, identify possible avenues for JCT for Health (ICT4H) applications to stimulate systematic social change for the common good.