PHAU APP

Uganda’s total fertility, maternal mortality, and teenage pregnancy rates remain among the highest globally. Uganda is committed to scale up the use of modern family planning methods to ensure that every Ugandan woman can choose when and how many children to have. The app seeks to partner with various family planning service providers through which youth will be able to acquire information and referral services of family planning. In 2017 Uganda revised its original commitment of 2012 to reduce the unmet need among adolescents from 30.4% in 2016 to 25% in 2021. By improving the number of health structures in hard-to-reach places, the Government of Uganda strives to expand its reach and provision of services and method mix, including long acting, reversible, and permanent methods. These commitments will contribute to the nation’s ambitious goal to reduce unmet need for family planning to 10% and increase the modern contraceptive prevalence rate to 50%. 

Around 20 million people have a mobile subscription, representing 44% of the population. By June 2018, there were nearly 10 million mobile internet connections in Uganda – a penetration rate of 23%, compared to less than 1% for fixed-line internet connections(GSM Association 2019). A report by the National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U), states that almost 24.8m (70.9 percent) of Ugandans own mobile phones. With 15.8 percent of the population owning smartphones, young people (15-24 years), are at the forefront of smart phone usage at 28 percent, the report says. Analysts say young people have a higher appetite because they appreciate and understand what a smartphone can do.(National IT Survey 2017/2018) There has been a high demand for health information through phone calls. Unfortunately, most of the issues raised by the youth are not addressed since the health workers are doubling as service providers on duty and having little or no time to respond to the community hotline calls. The PHAU app project seeks to increase the response and tracking of the various health issues raised by the youth in real time.

Phau App solves the problem of ending gender based violence, reducing maternal mortality and increasing uptake of family planning services by bridging the information gap in our communities through connecting urban youths, peer educators, health educators and medical health providers. We believe that myths and misinformation can be neutralized by sharing appropriate information to all men and women in the community so as to reduce gender based violence and maternal deaths. The app runs on a modern counselling approach among the targeted youth that live in the marginalised communities with reference to their characteristics, perceptions and need to have privacy when seeking health information. This is inspired by the Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model. The actual use of the information system relies on existence of intention towards using it. Continuation of use depends on acceptance by users and continuation of usage that depends on user's system satisfaction. The users include consellors, peer educators and general users. The app enables us to survey the responses of the community and be able to know the most prevailing issues in the community while addressing them with the best answers. The app gives the respondents the opportunity to analyze their individual contributions and identify different barriers existing among the different populations. Through the data collected we are able to establish the relationship between various factors and the communities where the app in in use.

Phau app is fully an interactive health information platform with real time tracking of content. We believe that we can reduce maternal mortality by enabling the women and girls make informed decisions. Our model is to provide marginalized youths access hundreds of peer educators, experienced counsellors and health workers through a question and answer approach of creating awareness and sensitization on integrated maternal health response. On the app we have signed up various counsellors who respond to the queries raised by the youth while respecting their confidentiality. On the app are success stories that are constantly updated from community and health worker experience. These stories can be read to inspire the users with a focus on the listed topics. The app has no adverts running on and is entirely free to all since access to health information is a human right. The app has no barriers like subscriptions for end users as this can deter youth from making informed decisions. The application is used to provide referrals from integrated services ( HIV/AIDS, Family Planning, SGBV Cases, Legal Support ) through our partners such as AHF Uganda cares, MarieStopes Uganda, CEHURD to mention but a few.

We currently have 2064 downloads with 356 Daily active users of the app and hope to increase the numbers with involvement of peer educators in all districts where we operate and also enrolling certified medical workers, experienced parents and community counsollers that are willing to spare some time in their day irrespective of their location to provide their consultation services via the platform. We are currently offering volunteer benefits with hope that we will be able to reward the enrolled experienced counselors and health workers basing on output and number of clients attended to. They will be given internet data, phones and a small appreciation stipend for their time and input.

The PHAU app amplifies our day to day activity programming and empowers our community trained peer educators to raise questions technical issues that will need real time address by a more technical person. The app also helps us conduct real time surveillance of arising issues in the various communities.

The app serves urban youths, peer educators, health educators and medical health providers. We believe that myths and misinformation can be neutralized by sharing appropriate information to all men and women in the community so as to reduce gender based violence and maternal deaths. The app runs on a modern counselling approach among the targeted youth that live in the marginalised communities with reference to their characteristics, perceptions and need to have privacy when seeking health information. 

Our model is to provide marginalized youths access hundreds of peer educators, experienced counsellors and health workers through a question and answer approach of creating awareness and sensitization on integrated maternal health response. 

Public health ambassadors Uganda uses a number of approaches built around human cetred design as described below; 

PHAU uses an edutainment, informative and performance arts approach such as through plays, skits, poems, dance narratives and flash mobs to mobilize young people for health services and to create awareness. PHAU also advocates for adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR) within the surrounding community through advocacy and youth empowerment, community development initiatives and social entrepreneurship.

Peer Education:

PHAU uses the multiplier effect of increasing information flow from one person to another. PHAU trains peer educators to use EIPA approach in empowering adolescents and youths in issues of SRH. Young people relate better with each other hence they are able to share experiences, hold discussions and debates on thematic topics. The trained peer educators then form Peer Health Teams (PHTs) that reach out to other adolescents and youths within schools and communities.The peer educators share useful input in the improvement of the app. 

ICT for Health:

PHAU has embraced the use of ICT in increasing access to SRH information and services. This is done through use of hotline 0800300600, whatsapp 0759446178 and various social media platforms where young people like, follow, share and comment on various thematic topics. They are engaged with case scenarios, short videos, photos with hash-tags(#) SRH messages. PHAU has over 50,000 followers on Facebook, Twitter, Google plus, Instagram, LinkedIn and Flicker. We often receive feedback on the functionality of the app on these various platforms.

Business and Entrepreneurship Training, Mentorship and Coaching:

PHAU trains young people and women in small business management skills, financial literacy, booking keeping and linking them to financial institutions. Economic empowerment enables young people to be job creators than job seekers hence increasing income levels at household levels. This is done through creating micro saving programs, income-generating groups, business dialogues, and forums. 

Capacity Building:

Building the capacity of the different civil society actors, peer educators, VHTS, partners will improve their ability to address the new trends of issues related to SRHR, HIV/AIDS affecting young people. This is purposed to create sustainability and continuity of interventions even when the projects/programs come to an end.

Edutainment and Informative Performance Arts (EIPA) approach:

Short skits, participatory theater, poems, dance narratives and flash mobs for community awareness and sensitization through interactive, participatory and fun sessions. EIPA provides a safe and supportive environment for young people to access youth Reproductive friendly services.

Advocacy:

PHAU introduces a model in the community-involving advocacy where the community is stimulated through community-led dialogues to identify, analyze, prioritize, create solutions, plan and implement them. PHAU will work to ensure that advocacy efforts are undertaken in relevant forums and seek to promote that all actors or stakeholders understand the roles and functions related to civil society actors.

We would like to scale up and believe that this challenge shall provide us with the grant income of not less than USD 60000 that will enable us to increase reach in the community we serve. We would also like to have access to technical support and market support that will help us sustain the innovation as we aim to solve the community health burden.

We intend to carry out refresher courses for all our peer educators and as well have continuous health education to address any arising issues with a culturally sensitive approach.

Partnership with a telecom company to make the app zero rated so as to allow interaction of youth with the health workers.

We intend to have story editors who will be tasked to review the content that is uploaded by our users on the app. 

The app hopes to have a dashboard that gives real time trending issues that are being discussed by the youth on health in a particular community. This dashboard is similar to the http://hris.health.go.ug/ that is being used by the ministry of health. We will also develop a coinciding web version of the app to allow health workers and youth interact more. The team is made of experienced public health professionals with experience and passion about the use of ICT for health. We have a wide reach across the country both online and offline that stretches from adjumani to Hoima, Luweero, Iganga and Mbale. We plan to relevantly incorporate the app solution in all our health programming as we partner and support government and private health organisations to provide better services as a sustainability plan. 

In the first half of the project we will recruit 10 peer educators(one per facility) where 5 are in Jinja and the other are in Kampala. We hope that basing on the performance of the first, we shall be able to enroll more facilities.

Health centres will subscribe at a fee of 50,000 per month and 600,000 per year that enables them to be direct beneficiaries of referrals and also have 3 of their health clinicians registered to respond to medical needs of the users. Direct beneficiaries will have to pay nothing as a strategy of removing any barrier to access of information.

We intend to enroll community counsellors, schoolteachers that are trained on sexual health education. Parents to will also be encouraged to join through their Parent Teacher Association (PTA) as a way of winning their trust and ability to engage with their youth on sex talk. Many parents in Uganda do not directly talk to their children about sex and this will be a useful tool.

We currently work with airtel telecom that supports our toll-free hotline and one clinic; Access Health services in Namuwongo and another one in Makindye. 

The app will also onboard public facilities where some clients can be referred basing on need and available services. 

We plan to have a more service providers from the targeted health centres trained on youth friendly service provision and how to engage with youth.

1: To increase access, awareness and utilization of correct and accurate information on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent young women and men aged 15-24 years in Kampala by December 2026.

2:To train and enroll phau app counsellors that will actively respond to questions on the phau app to promote sexual and reproductive health of adolescent young women and men aged 15-24 years in Kampala by December  2024.

3: To increase access, awareness and utilization of correct and accurate information on the underlying social cultural and other structural drivers of maternal deaths among young women and girls in Uganda by December 2024.

4: To conduct App Data mining and systhesis and generate knowledge for informed decision making and policy advocacy by 2023.

Number of new phau app downloads

Number of questions raised on the platform

Number of counsellors and health facilities onboarded

number of peer educators onboarded

number of success stories shared and uploaded

PHAU’s theory of change as an organisation is based on the understanding/ fact that young people are the most disadvantaged when it comes to controlling and owning their health. Young people suffer disproportionate inequalities when it comes to accessing Sexual Reproductive Health Services and Rights at all levels.

At PHAU, we believe that a holistic approach with continued Community participation, Policy advocacy and awareness, Capacity building, Building partnerships and collaborations, Research and learning, and Innovations focused on the youth issues/matters; will yield/ result into:

1. Evidence-based advocacy, communication and social mobilization; aimed at harnessing a collective voice of young people and SRHR actors to influence the program, policy and legal environment in Uganda.

2. Increasing access and utilization of quality, age-appropriate, evidence-based and friendly SRHR services and information by young people; to strengthen the delivery of quality SRHR services, information and education for young people in Uganda.

3. Capacity strengthening and empowerment for young people to overcome social - economic and political marginalization, and to support the full realization, representation, accountability and responsiveness to young people’s SRHR needs.

4.  Engaged strategic networks, collaborations, partnerships and synergies with different actors to promote and protect young people’s SRHR and encourage progressive societal norms for informed decision making and positive change to attitudes, behaviors and practices.

Core technology is software.   Both through mobile app and the Web app administration system to manage and track user activities and performance.

The Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), or TAM, posits that there are two factors that determine whether a computer system will be accepted by its potential users: (1) perceived usefulness, and (2) perceived ease of use.  The key feature of this model is its emphasis on the perceptions of the potential user.  That is, while the creator of a given technology product may believe the product is useful and user-friendly, it will not be accepted by its potential users unless the users share those beliefs. It is against this background that through human centred design we have gone round to ensure that the app is developed and improved around the needs of the clients in the community.

The PHAU App team has full access and control over the data sets collected from the platform and is currently putting to use and finding creative modern ways of providing Sexual Reproductive Health information.

We currently have 5326 downloads with 356 Daily active users of the app. As of April 2022, 3848 females and 1478 are males. During the covid19 pandemic lockdown, we  also had an increase in the number of youth seeking health education.

We plan to use the data to guide our advocacy and also support informed decision making in planning of health services. We would like to predict health behaviour among youths. 

Our team has put efforts on becoming more diverse, equitable and inclusive through promotion of gender equality and women empowerment. Our current team leader is a lady and we have strived to involve young girls and women in most of the decisions we make for the community. We believe that health is a human right so we do not limit anyone that seeks to access health services through our platforms and efforts. At PHAU we believe in opportunity for all and have set avenues that allow youth to become their full potential through most of our programs like the public health ambassadors program.

PHAU capitalizes on its ability to mobilize young people at grassroot level and facilitate the amplification of their voices through all available communication channels. Whereas competition for global financial resources is increasing, PHAU has strategically positioned itself to tap into resources targeted at advocating for young people’s rights. PHAU supports young people to voice out their concerns in print and electronic media, program reports, dialogues with duty bearers and decision makers as well as interfaces with funding partners. Promoting young people’s participation in identifying and prioritizing their challenges as well as designing and delivering their own interventions makes PHAU’s work authentic and relevant.

We intend to boost our finances through sustained donations on flutterwave and benevity where we listed the project as a cause and grants from donors. We plan to sell our referal services to private clinics that may need specific clients on a social price. We also hope to secure service contracts with the goverment where we provide big analysed community health statistics data for informed decision making.

We also hope to raise investment capital from wiling partners who may buy our vision.

We intend to carry out refresher courses for all our peer educators and as well have continuous health education to address any arising issues with a culturally sensitive approach. Partner facilities will pay a small premium for this service.

Partnership with a telecom company to make the app zero rated so as to allow interaction of youth with the health workers.

We intend to have story editors who will be tasked to review the content that is uploaded by our users on the app.    

In the first half of the project we will recruit 10 peer educators(one per facility) where 5 are in Jinja and the other are in Kampala. We hope that basing on the performance of the first, we shall be able to enroll more facilities.

The app will also onboard public facilities where some clients can be referred basing on need and available services. Health centres will subscribe at a fee of 50,000 per month and 600,000 per year that enables them to be direct beneficiaries of referrals and also have 3 of their health clinicians registered to respond to medical needs of the users. Direct beneficiaries will have to pay nothing as a strategy of removing any barrier to access of information.

We have just recently begun promoting our innovation after spending time to build it and be certain of its performance. We are yet to receive feedback from some granters and donors solely for the app.

We have however received support from Guttmachuer, and PSI-Yo Space to disseminate key health information through the app.