Context: Why is this project important?
Evidence shows that mothers and children consistently bear the brunt of disease burden in many developing countries. How can a country break the vicious cycle and shift its own priorities in favour of health research as a basis for improved health status? Recent health research modalities indicate a trend toward collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches in addressing the disproportionate amount of research currently directed toward health issues plaguing low and middle-income countries.

Scientific isolation remains a significant hurdle for many developing country mother-child health scientists. Researching how these individuals and institutions gain awareness, join, share knowledge and interact with one another is valuable for understanding how better to strengthen and mobilize local research capacity. There remains a relative dearth of research on adoption and use of particular information and communication technologies (ICTs) in facilitating interaction among maternal-child health researchers.

The Project: How does this initiative address the development problem?
The Mother and Child International Health Research Project (http://www.mother-child.org/) is a demand-driven, participatory and non-proprietary online space for maternal-child health researchers to engage in online collaboration activities - often facilitated by "Web 2.0" technologies. Web 2.0 is a term that encompasses several second generation Internet-based services that strengthen online collaboration - specific examples of Web 2.0 tools include wikis, blogs, folksonomies and social networking sites. Focusing on engaging scientists in low-income countries, the project is expected to strengthen local linkages between scientists - and in time, perhaps contribute to a core of well-versed, local, respected scientists which could emerge to influence health policies at various levels.

Objectives:
To assess how demand-driven web tools influence the exchange of information and knowledge between maternal-child health researchers, particularly in low-income countries. More specifically, the project aims to:

• Assess the current needs and communication channels used by low-income country researchers;
• Strengthen the network of maternal-child researchers; and
• develop quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools to gauge the frequency and nature of participating among different members.

Development Impact
As the project has just recently started, its development impact cannot be assessed at this time.

Outputs
All publications and materials related to this project will be listed here as they become available.

Key Words*

INTERNET | INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY | NETWORKS | HEALTH PERSONNEL | RESEARCH WORKERS | MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH

* All terms are drawn from the OECD Macrothesaurus 1998.