An integrated mobile application for enhancing management of nutrition information in Tanzania

Abstract

Malnutrition contributes to over one half of the deaths of children under age of five years in developing countries and is the single greatest cause of child mortality in Tanzania. Studies reveal that, the issue of malnutrition is aggravated by lack of nutrition information especially in rural communities. Absence of proper tools makes collection, management and access to nutrition information very difficult. This study improves accessibility of nutrition information by taking advantage of the advanced mobile technologies and develops a system for managing nutrition information. The system was implemented using a mixed approach involving qualitative techniques whereby the requirements and fact finding was done through interviews and literature review. Unified Modelling Language (UML) technique was used to design and model the user requirements and system specification. PHP, MySQL, XML and Java were used to complement the development of this system. The developed mobile-based nutrition information management system was then integrated with existing Health Centre System and is able to provide a platform that gives mothers instant access to nutritional tips, allow them to interact with nutrition practitioners and help in record keeping. The results demonstrate the potential of using mobile technology for collection and delivering nutrition information in various sectors. In particular, this system could be adopted to improve prenatal and postnatal health in Tanzania and therefore help in bringing down the number of deaths of children under age of five.