Strengthening Community Health Systems with Localized Multimedia

Many Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems are currently used to support Community Health Workers (CHWs) in impoverished populations. However, the majority of these systems are textbased, making them difficult to use in areas of low literacy. We have added multimedia to one such system, CommCare, to aid CHWs in counseling clients and promoting healthy behaviors in their communities. This paper explores the benefits and challenges introduced by using multimedia CommCare through a qualitative review of CHW/client interactions and implementer interviews. We find that multimedia increases client engagement as well as CHW credibility and suggest identifying an engaging speaker and determining optimal audio message length as potential strategies for creating effective multimedia.