A grant from MCubed Diamond, an innovative Michigan program that matches donors to research projects, is funding a pilot study to evaluate and track maternal and child health in rural villages of West Bengal, India. Led by Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, professor of biostatistics at the School of Public Health, the project will involve community health workers equipped with tablet technology who will survey villagers.

[Photo: Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee]

Dr. Mukherjee is working with iKure, a startup social enterprise with the goal of reaching rural Indians with this hub-and-spoke model. The hospital hub sends out community health workers (the spokes) with tablets to villages to monitor primary health. The information is then uploaded to the cloud to be analyzed by Michigan researchers.

The study will follow 200 pregnant mothers and 300 children younger than age 2, tracking their health over 18 months.

“We will be able get valuable health information about anemia, hypertension or gestational diabetes in women, which often goes unchecked. The children will be monitored for developmental delays. If there are complications, they will be referred to the hospital,” says Dr. Mukherjee.

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