Health[e]Foundation and Amref Health Africa are happy to announce that the LUCY app has been officially launched in Kenya. LUCY is now available in English and Swahili and can be downloaded from the Google PlayStore and App Store at no costs.
LUCY is a smartphone app that aims to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality by supporting (expectant) women and parents during the most exciting, but also insecure, time of their lives. The app provides weekly information about a healthy pregnancy and how to take care of a newborn. Additionally, it offers a prenatal and postnatal visit calendar, as well as a mood tracker, that allows (expectant) women to keep track of their appointments, the growth and development of their baby, and their own mood. All information has been adapted to the country context of Kenya. This allows the app to be adherent to international guidelines and the national immunization schedule, while speaking to the local context of Kenyan women in their own language.
Amref trained a total of 37 community health workers (CHWs) on the use of the LUCY app via three interactive sessions in Kajiado, Migori, and Kisii. Together with the CHWs they went through the download process of the LUCY app. Thereafter, they practiced with the navigation process of the app, including the health information, visit calendar, mood tracker, and profile tabs. The health information in both English and Swahili was studied and discussed by the CHWs to improve their understanding of the information (expectant) women will be able to get from the app based on their gestational age or age of the newborn.
Health[e]Foundation was present during the training sessions in Ntimaru Health Centre (Migori) and Kegogi Health Centre (Kisii) to support the process of digital literacy skills building and to collect input on the digital user experience. Valuable feedback was provided by the CHVs on how to further optimize and improve the app in terms of navigation, language , and rollout model.
Over the next months, the trained CHWs will assist (expectant) women in their catchment areas in downloading and using the LUCY app. Amref and Health[e]Foundation will continue their collaboration to optimize the LUCY app and evaluate its results. Stay tuned for the for the first evaluation results!
