Community-based technology to tackle regional disparities in child nutrition

Abstraksi

Today, more of the world’s poorest households have access to mobile phones than to toilets or clean water (World Bank, 2016). Meanwhile, the global enthusiasm in using mobile phones for nutrition surveillance systems has not yet been adequately translated into evidence to show the efficacy of its application, particularly in Indonesia. This paper uses data from a previous evaluation project, in which the author was involved, that focused on the use of mobile phone technology in Indonesia (Barnett et al, 2016). This study had a mixed methods design, using Mill’s Method of Difference, a realist evaluation, and qualitative in-depth analysis to assess the impact of a mobile phone application on nutrition surveillance. Data collection took place over 12 sessions of the community-based Integrated Health Posts (Posyandu) from January 2015 to January 2016 in rural (Sikka, NTT) and urban (Jakarta) sites in Indonesia. This paper specifically focuses on NTT as one of the six provinces in Indonesia with a prevalence of stunting exceeding the national rate. It aims to offer innovative opportunities to address child malnutrition in NTT. Views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of the Australian Embassy or DFAT. Evaluation findings show that the mobile phone application increased the accuracy of nutritional status classification by 80 per cent on average, and Posyandu cadres’ responsiveness during Posyandu sessions. As an implication, this poses a promising approach for scale up in revitalising community-based Posyandu services and addressing regional disparities of child nutrition outcomes in Indonesia.