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Leveraging Big Data to Improve Mental Health After COVID-19: An Innovative Research Method Reveals Unmet Needs and Untapped Opportunities in Nigeria
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a marked impact on the state of global mental health, particularly in emerging regions like Africa. According to Ravi Sreenath and Amy Nguyen at Ripple Research, this has generated a significant need – and a market opportunity – for digital health tools, as well as a need for better data. They assess the state of mental health in Nigeria, analyzing data from millions of conversations across news sites, blogs and social media platforms – and explore how this data reveals new opportunities for social enterprises and investors.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
- Tags
- climate health, COVID-19, data
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Announcing Our New Series: NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles
NextBillion runs our "Most Influential Articles" contest at the end of each year, in which we select 12 of our most-read articles from the previous year and invite readers to vote for their favorites. Since 2021 marked the 10th year of the contest, we're commemorating a full decade of thought-provoking analysis and opinion from entrepreneurs, investors, researchers and others in the emerging markets business and social enterprise sectors with a new series highlighting all of NextBillion’s Most Influential Articles from 2012 to today.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Coronavirus, Energy, Finance, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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The Digital Revolution in Healthcare: How COVID-19 Has Accelerated Efforts to Close the Health Data Gap in Emerging Markets
In many emerging markets, there is a lack of accountable, accurate, real-time health information. With most medical information stored either on paper or on unconnected, often incompatible digital platforms, health statistics are largely disjointed, incomplete and inaccurate – a data gap that impacts every stakeholder in the healthcare ecosystem. However, according to Mark Wien at PocketPatientMD, this situation is changing. He explores how COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to digital data solutions, and highlights some key challenges to these efforts.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
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Finding Opportunity in a Crisis: How Hatch Technologies Started a New Medical Device Venture During a Global Pandemic
In July 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic was spreading aggressively across Africa. That's the same month Hatch Technologies, a nonprofit supporting newborn medical device distribution and services in sub-Saharan Africa, launched its operations. Dick Oranja, Hatch's executive director, discusses the challenges of starting a new venture during one of the most financially and logistically demanding times the world has experienced – and explores why the pandemic proved to be a surprisingly opportune time to launch.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
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From Local Manufacturing to Digital Tech: How African Organizations are Pivoting to Support Maternal and Child Health During COVID-19
There have been substantial improvements in maternal and child health in sub-Saharan Africa over the last two decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic has put these gains at risk, as both maternal and perinatal outcomes are worsening in countries across the continent. Shraddha Kothari of Intellecap details how some organizations have adapted to respond to these challenges, exploring how they're using technology-based solutions, local manufacturing and innovative partnerships to prevent further deterioration of maternal and child health outcomes in the region.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care
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Innovation in Action: Lessons From Healthcare Innovators That Rapidly Pivoted To Respond to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced health-focused social enterprises to adjust their methods and priorities, shifting their modes of patient engagement and even developing entirely new programs. Innovations in Healthcare, a nonprofit housed at Duke University, studied a group of health innovators working in low- and middle-income countries to understand these shifts. Victoria Hsiung, Sowmya Rajan and Katie Flowers share insights from a recent white paper analyzing how these organizations have adapted, assessing four groups' choices and exploring the lessons learned.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The Supply and Demand Dilemma in COVID-19 Vaccine Manufacturing: Could Lessons from the Fashion Industry Provide Ideas for a Solution?
Expanding access to the COVID-19 vaccine is essential to stopping global transmission and halting the emergence of new variants of the virus. But efforts to optimize vaccine manufacturing and distribution have been hampered by multifaceted challenges involving supply and demand. Prashant Yadav at INSEAD, Rebecca Weintraub at Harvard Medical School, and biotech and vaccine industry consultant Tom Johnston explain how solutions to those issues may be found in another sector with volatile product demand and a global manufacturing base: the fashion apparel industry.
- Categories
- Health Care
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Improving COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Around the World: Leveraging Partnerships and Technology to Optimize Medical Supply Chains
Effective vaccine distribution is key to overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic in low- and middle-income countries. Similar vaccination efforts for routine childhood diseases have been widely successful, but targeting an adult population presents unique challenges, say Wade Warren at Deloitte Consulting and Marian W. Wentworth at Management Sciences for Health. They explore four challenges that vaccine distribution efforts will face – and four tried-and-proven ways to improve the process.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Health Care, Transportation
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