Environmental and Sanitation Improvements with mHealth

PROJECT SUMMARY More than half of the world’s population is urban. While economic opportunities often drive migration to urban settings, the benefits of increased economic opportunity, environmental and health infrastructure in cities is not adequate or equitable. While urban areas may have greater sanitation coverage, those in densely populated, slum communities experience disparities in distribution, quality, and continuity of these water and sanitation services. In conjunction with government investment, the issues of collective action, stakeholder engagement, inclusive and sustainable practices remain critical to impactful urban sanitation solutions. Addressing the major barriers to effective urban sanitation interventions such as building mechanisms for communication between the residents of the vulnerable communities and the service providers at scale has the potential to make a tremendous impact on health and well-being. Mobile health technology has tremendous potential to gather data directly from the underserved populations in need of sustainable water and sanitation solutions and enhance the inclusion of vulnerable populations in the participatory construction of these solutions. The primary purpose of this proposal is to develop and evaluate a mobile health technology program to enhance urban sanitation interventions in densely populated and marginalized urban communities to increase connections and engagement with sanitation interventions, and result in reduced environmental contamination. Through formative research, a pilot feasibility investigation, and a validation study, we will determine the ability of the mHealth program to enhance urban sanitation interventions.