手机助力"儿童健康计划"

Health care workers are using cell phones to improve the health of pregnant women and babies in small villages in Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and seven other African countries. EarthSky spoke with Dr. Patricia Mechael, an advisor on mHealth, or mobile health, for the U.N.’s Millennium Villages Project.

卫生保健工作者正利用手机改善非洲肯尼亚、埃塞俄比亚、卢旺达及其他7国农村地区孕妇和婴儿的健康状况。EarthSky采访到的是帕特丽夏．米歇尔博士，她是联合国“千禧村”移动医疗项目的顾问。

Patricia Mechael: In many areas you might not have roads, but you’ll have the telecommunications networks.

帕特丽夏．米歇尔：非洲很多地区都没马路，但是有通信网络。

Mechael is working on a mobile health program called Child Count Plus, launched in January 2010. It uses cellphones to help monitor the health of pregnant women, newborns, and children under the age of 5. Mechael told us that when community health workers make routine visits to a household, they communicate health information about pregnant women and babies to the Child Count Plus central location. Child Count Plus texts back with recommended health advice. According to the U.N., Africa is the continent that’s experiencing the fastest growth in cellphone use.

米歇尔正致力于2010年1月启动的移动医疗健康项目的实施，该项目称为“儿童健康计划”，是利用手机监察孕妇、新生儿和5岁以下儿童的健康状态。米歇尔告诉我们，社区医疗工作者定期访问某一家庭，将收集到的孕妇和婴儿的健康信息发给“儿童健康计划”项目中心部。“儿童健康计划”的工作人员则用短信回复相应的保健建议。据联合国调查，非洲是手机用户的增长速度最快的地区。

Patricia Mechael: There are market forces that are driving the spread of the networks themselves, but also the prioritization by individuals to buy mobile phones and to subscribe to mobile phone service. So what we’re trying to do is capitalize on something that individuals have already prioritized themselves.

帕特丽夏．米歇尔：通信网络的迅速发展不仅归功于市场的驱动力量，人们优先考虑购买手机和订阅手机服务的举动也发挥了很大的作用。所以我们要利用人们优先购买及使用手机这一事实。

Mechael predicted that in a few years, health services using cell phones will be commonplace in the developing world.

米歇尔预计，几年后，基于手机的移动医疗服务会在发展中国家得到普及。