Things I work on...How I see them...and Health Informatics

In Nigeria, Mobile overtakes Desktop – Generation mI

asangansi — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:29:26 +0000

This has long been discussed; the large potential that exist for m4D, mobiles for development. But it is now cemented by data, which clearly illustrates how the internet is increasingly accessed in developing countries.

Mobile Overtakes Desktop

Note: It doesn’t necessarily mean that access on the desktop is reducing. No, look again, the y-axis is percentage, so it means it more of a ratio or percentage. The actual number of hits from personal computers may still be rising (or may be stagnant…or worse dropping) but clearly this shows that most of the hits to the internet from Nigeria have been from mobiles…from few months ago.

Permit me to say that Nigeria’s mobile internet (mI) generation began a while back. I feel opportune to be able to place my thesis right in this center of activity and investigate how this can be used to leverage health care, which is in dire need of a fix.
I think this data clearly makes an argument for expanding our global health arsenal to mobile web tools. More so as the current mobile internet price wars in Nigeria will further increase access to more people.

Contrast this to the worldwide trend, which shows a change that is less than 10%;

Lets leave it at that for now…
PS: Data based on thousands of sites on the StatCounter network (as recognized by ip address). By May 2010 the StatCounter site had 19,336,215 hits from Nigeria (out of a worldwide total of 16 billion hits)

Writing up thesis on mHealth…Scaling mHealth in Low-Resource settings

asangansi — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:33:22 +0000

Scaling is a central concern in public health. More so, it is an underlying assumption because it is largely concerned with the health of the entire populace. The motivation to scale health services and its associated components including health information networks is underpinned by everything ‘public’ about public health. It is a basis for WHO’s mission and was well captured in its landmark ‘Health for All’ conference in Alma Ata 40 years ago (WHO, 1978). It is also the basis for spreading evidence-based and scientifically proven small-scale interventions to the populace (Black 1986, Taylor 2010). Scaling up global health initiatives and packages, rolling them to the lowest levels is thus a core strategy in reaching for the Millenium Development Goals targets by 2015 (United Nations, 2010).

Despite considerable increases in funds directed at scaling health services in low-resource settings and their associated information systems (Ravishankar et al 2009), reaching the lowest levels of care and the populace in targeting the MDGs have been largely unsuccessful (United Nations, 2010).

In this regard, mHealth, the application of mobiles for health is promising. Mobile technology is transforming healthcare by increasing access to healthcare and health-related information including hard-to-reach populations, improving the ability to track diseases, providing timlier and more actionable public health information and expanding access to health education as well as training (VitalWave, 2009). From a mass media perspective, it is also regarded as the fastest scaling media technology in history compared with how long it took print, recordings, cinema, radio, television and internet to scale (Ahonen, 2008).

In this research, the role of mHealth in scaling health information networks is investigated. Is mHealth the magic bullet it is envisioned to be? Are they any constraints – technical, strategic, organizational? What are the key lessons for architectural and implementation design?

Research aims and objectives coming…

Analyzing OpenMRS Data Using Statistical Software

asangansi — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 11:56:06 +0000

I was just asked by a colleague to propose suggestions for his organization’s plan for analyzing data from a few clinical research centers in Nigeria using OpenMRS.
And so I have been investigating the best way for this and have come up with options – at the end of the day, different members of the team will choose what they are most comfortable with.

The options:

1. Report compatibility module https://wiki.openmrs.org/display/docs/Reporting+Module

2. Connect excel analysis sheet to MYSQL
(If you use excel for analysis, its better to get the analysis template going first) http://helpdeskgeek.com/office-tips/excel-to-mysql/

Excel pivot analysis sheet to mysql (just like in DHIS2) http://208.76.222.114/confluence/display/REP/How+to+set+up+Excel+pivot+tables+with+data+from+DHIS+2

3. Connect STATA directly to mysql http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/odbcmu.html

4. Connect SAS directly to mysql
(also use ODBC
libname tmp1 ‘c:\Foldername1\Foldername2 ;
libname tmp2 odbc user=username password=password database=databasename ; )

5. Use Birt Report module – especially for web-based statistical reporting/calculations and if you feel BIRTy about everything reports

Thanks to Ben, Darius and Ada for comments on the list.

Compare Mobile Device Statistics for Opera Mobile (from the US)

asangansi — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:13:13 +0000

SOmething interesting is to compare the list for Nigeria with that for a developed country such as USA

Top handsets for November 2009 for USA from http://www.opera.com/smw/2009/11/

1. BlackBerry 8330 (“Curve”)
2. LG LX600 (“Lotus”)
3. Samsung SPH-M810 (“Instinct S30”)
4. Samsung SPH-M800 (“Instinct”)
5. LG CU920 (“Vu”)
6. BlackBerry 9000 (“Bold”)
7. BlackBerry 8310 (“Curve”)
8. BlackBerry 9530 (“Storm”)
9. BlackBerry 8900 (“Curve”)
10. BlackBerry 8320 (“Curve”)

HIGH END and SMART!!!

Statistics for Nigeria from Opera Mobile

asangansi — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:26:44 +0000

Interesting statistics from Opera on Nigeria
http://www.opera.com/smw/2009/11/

Snapshot: Nigeria

* Page-view growth since November 2008: 311.2%
* Unique-user growth since November 2008: 211.4%
* Page views per user: 361
* Data (compressed) transferred per user (MB): 5
* Data (compressed) transferred per page view (KB): 14

Top 10 sites in Nigeria (unique users)

1. facebook.com
2. google.com
3. yahoo.com
4. bbc.co.uk
5. goal.com
6. wikipedia.org
7. cnn.com
8. sharemobile.ro
9. nairaland.com
10. myspace.com

Top handsets for November 2009

1. Nokia 3110c
2. Nokia 5130
3. Nokia 2600c
4. Nokia N70
5. Nokia N72
6. Nokia 6300
7. Sony Ericsson K750i
8. Nokia 2630
9. Sony Ericsson K800i
10. Nokia 3500c

mHealth: Connectivity and Accessibility as Key

asangansi — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:37:29 +0000

mHealth is widely regarded as the application of mobile technology to health. This is a useful simplification especially to the uninitiated and the unsuspecting…
It doesn’t do justice to what is ‘mobile’ and socially ‘mobilized’ in mhealth, thereby presupposing a simplistic technologically deterministic result.

I was just thinking that the key feature in the practice of mobile communication in health is connectivity rather than mobility, especially in the context of developing settings. Of course, connectivity becomes an issue when mobility arises.

But look back and think: haven’t individuals and communities been mobile from time immemorial? Haven’t technologies been mobile in themselves? walking around the surface of this crust we call the earth?
What mobiles and telecommunications introduce to use now is mainly connectivity, accessibility on the go. It is the increased individualized capacity to access global and local networks from any place and any time that is making much difference.

We need to begin to foster this phenomenon for health, allowing access to health-related information to everyone. That should move us closer to meeting the MDGs (if you don’t know what that means, chances are that you don’t need it…lol).

This is one of the major ways we should develop the mHealth space.

Ime Asangansi is an mHealth researcher based in Nigeria. He is a research fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway.

David diop

asangansi — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:13:05 +0000

David Diop

Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you
But your blood flows in my veins
Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields
The blood of your sweat
The sweat of your work
The work of your slavery
Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
But a grave voice answers me
Impetuous child that tree, young and strong
That tree over there
Splendidly alone amidst white and faded flowers
That is your Africa springing up anew
Springing up patiently, obstinately
Whose fruit bit by bit acquires
The bitter taste of liberty.

http://blogginginparis.wordpress.com/2004/08/22/afrique-africa-by-david-diop-1927-1960/

Health IS Research Literature

asangansi — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:08:44 +0000

HISP Literature

4 links

IFI working papers
http://www.ifi.uio.no/research/groups/gi/working.html

GI Group Thesis – 20

HISP.info Research Papers

Design Group – Jens

Call for Papers in Information Systems

asangansi — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:41:26 +0000

I made some small list of call for papers I know of.
See at: http://tinyurl.com/iscall4papers

Please feel free to add and edit at: http://tinyurl.com/editIS Anyone can edit

Today’s web landscape

asangansi — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:07:05 +0000

Great overview of today’s web application world

http://www.laliluna.de/the-web-framework-evaluation.html