More work for ASHAs? Exploring the role of whatsapp messaging and community health work in urban slum areas of Varanasi, India

Amelia Jamison, Rohini Ganjoo, Saraniya N Tharmarajah, Bikash Kumar Panda, Manoj Parida, Shruti Pandey, Madhushree Pandey, Satyanarayan Mohanty and Rajiv N Rimal

PLOS Global Public Health, 2025, vol. 5, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: India’s community health workers (CHWs) have taken on an onerous set of responsibilities for the welfare of their clients across a variety of health domains, including providing modern contraception for family planning, promoting childhood vaccinations, and enhancing pregnant women’s nutritional outcomes. Governments have also added technology to this mix under the assumption that new digital tools can relieve the work burdens. Through interviews with 22 CHWs, this study found that, besides offering health services for the community, CHWs report an expanding workload that includes several government initiatives. While beneficial in some ways, digital technologies have also introduced new administrative burdens for CHWs, who must manage recordkeeping across incompatible systems. Our findings highlight the complexities of using mhealth technology, emphasizing the need for solutions that enhance rather than replace the vital role of CHWs in fostering trust and overcoming barriers to vaccination. While CHWs continue to play a pivotal role in improving vaccine uptake and navigating the complexities of healthcare delivery, their expanding responsibilities and the nuanced challenges of vaccine hesitancy—particularly in urban slum areas—underscore the need for ongoing support and adaptation of technology to effectively bridge the gap between healthcare systems and the communities they serve.

Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0005157 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 05157&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0005157

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0005157

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().