Medical-Local Knowledge Research Network Using ICTs for Identifying Effective Health Practices in Africa

Project Gist

Medical-Local Knowledge Research Network Using ICTs for Identifying Effective Health Practices in Africa

Keywords

Healthcare, Local knowledge, Africa, ICT

Joint Research/Academic Institutions Abroad

Addis Ababa University, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences

Background and Purpose

In international health researches, medical diseases and life and death are often quantified in terms of “morbidity” and “mortality”, which are then used as health indicators to quantitatively evaluate how people in African countries can “live healthier”. This project depicts medical practices for “living healthier” including people’s medical-local knowledge. It leverages the rapid adoption and use of the Internet in Africa to improve medical literacy.

Project Achievements

Project members (Kaneko, Shimpuku, Nishi, Aoyama, Taniguchi, etc.) shared their research at regular research meetings.　As an example, Shimpuku’s research group developed an application for Tanzanian midwives related to medical practice and had the midwives continue to use it on a trial basis.This project developed an app for Tanzanian midwives that was related to medical practice and had the midwives continue to use it on a trial basis. The project members reviewed case studies related to medical practice based on local knowledge and consolidated them into the “Archive of case studies on Medical local knowledge. The project has created the platform for sharing the information by using ICTs（https://globalhealthnursing.com/Medical%20Zairaichi/）. This project disseminated the results of our research activities in collaboration with Ethiopian and Tanzanian researchers at the international workshop on “Medical ZAIRAICHI, A Medical-Local Knowledge on Research Network”.

Future Prospects

The project members have gotten a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research in 2020 academic year. They are working with young researchers to form a network of local knowledge research to develop research on the formation and sharing of local knowledge for “healthier living”.

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Principal Investigator