Rebecca Braun, DrPH Candidate
Through the Bixby Internship, Rebecca helped launch an evaluation of a Family Planning Mobile Job Aid for Community Health Workers (CHWs), through a partnership including FHI 360, the Tanzanian National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Pathfinder, and D-Tree International. The goal of this project is to critically examine an innovative mobile technology-based approach to increasing access to family planning information and services at the community-level in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
While in Tanzania, Rebecca worked with the in-country research team to finalize the research protocol, including the timeline, data collection tools and standard operating procedures, and develop a data analysis plan. She also helped to develop and implement two weeklong trainings, one for the team of 10 Research Assistants and a second for the 50 Community Health Workers and their 6 Supervisors. Additionally, Rebecca oversaw the implementation of the CHW Baseline Survey and prepared two one-day RA trainings to be delivered in advance of the next two rounds of data collection.
This project creates an opportunity to assess the potential to introduce mHealth into community-based family planning programs, with a specific lens toward the experiences of the CHWs themselves. The findings can serve to improve design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation efforts, and inform future program and policy decisions to introduce mobile technology into CBFP efforts, in Tanzania and beyond.