IT Tool to improve health of rural SC Community in Chittoor

CHENNAI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has developed an Information Technology tool to monitor and improve the health of rural Scheduled Caste (SC) communities in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. The IT Tool, developed using open-source software, was deployed to gather detailed household-level annual health-related information.

The institution's release on Friday said that this IT Tool was also utilized to make an objective assessment of the impact of medical treatment and dietary advice on priority health issues. This would lead to evolving an optimal rural healthcare plan based on treatment efficacy and expenses.

The project was implemented in E. Palaguttapalli SC and its adjoining hamlets, PakaJa Mandal and Pulicherla Mandal, in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, which have a population of around 100 Scheduled Caste (SC) households, each having 5-6 members.

In the past, their diet consisted of mainly ragi and other millets, plenty of milk products, fish and other aquatic meat. The doctor team from SV College of Ayurveda - Harnath Chary and Dr Gnana prasoonaamba visited the villages once every two months and helped in the effective implementation of this project.

Due to poverty, their current diet is dry and poor, devoid of pulses, milk products or meat. As a result women and children are severely anaemic. Correct dietary advice by expert health practitioners has been able to alleviate the symptoms. The IIT Madras' efforts were geared towards improving their health. Internet-based live interactions were organized every alternate month where special lectures on improving health were delivered.