The Experts below are selected from a list of 25419 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Michael G. Christel - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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JCDL - Analysis of transaction logs for insights into use of life oral histories
Proceedings of the 2009 joint international conference on Digital libraries - JCDL '09, 2009Co-Authors: Michael G. Christel, Bryan S MaherAbstract:A digital Video Library of over 900 hours of Video and 18000 stories from The HistoryMakers was used by 214 students, faculty, librarians, and life-long learners interacting with a system providing multiple search and viewing capabilities over a trial period of several months. User demographics and actions were logged, providing metrics on how the system was used. This poster overviews a few highlights from these transaction logs of the Informedia digital Video Library system for life oral histories.
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supporting Video Library exploratory search when storyboards are not enough
Conference on Image and Video Retrieval, 2008Co-Authors: Michael G. ChristelAbstract:Storyboards, a grid layout of thumbnail images as surrogates representing Video, have received much attention in Video retrieval interfaces and published studies through the years, and work quite well as navigation aids and as facilitators for shot-based information retrieval. When the information need is tied less to shots and requires inspection of stories and across stories, other interfaces into the Video data have been demonstrated to be quite useful. These interfaces include scatterplots for timelines, choropleth maps, dynamic query preview histograms, and named entity relation diagrams representing sets of hundreds or thousands of Video stories. One challenge for interactive Video search is to move beyond support for fact-finding and also address broader, longer term search activities of learning, analysis, synthesis, and discovery. Examples are shown for broadcast news and life oral histories, drawing from empirically collected data showing how such interfaces can promote improved exploratory search. This paper surveys and reflects on a body of Informedia interface work dealing with news, folding in for the first time an examination of exploratory transactions with an oral history corpus.
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evaluating a digital Video Library web interface
ACM IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 2002Co-Authors: Michael G. Christel, Pedro Cubilo, Junius Gunaratne, William Jerome, O Eunju, Sohini SolankiAbstract:In late 2001, a web-based interface to public domain Videos from NASA and other U.S. government agencies was prototyped using Informedia [3] processing. This interface, as shown in Figure 1, was evaluated as a course project required for CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) Master’s Program. This report outlines the evaluation process and summarizes a few findings, to illustrate the utility of applying HCI methods during a prototyping development phase.
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Video classification and retrieval with the informedia digital Video Library system
Text REtrieval Conference, 2002Co-Authors: Alexander G. Hauptmann, Mark Derthick, Michael G. Christel, Rong Jin, Rong Yan, Mingyu Chen, Robert V Baron, Wei-hao LinAbstract:This paper is organized in three parts. The first part details some of the lower level shot classification work, the second part describes the ‘manual’ retrieval systems while the last section details the interactive retrieval system for the Carnegie Mellon University TREC Video Retrieval Track runs. The description of the data can be found elsewhere in the proceedings of the 2002 TREC conference Video track overview.
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Improving Access to Digital Video Archives through Informedia Technology
Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2001Co-Authors: Michael G. Christel, Howard D. Wactlar, Alexander G. HauptmannAbstract:Informedia research at Carnegie Mellon University combines speech recognition, image processing, and natural language processing to automatically index a digital Video Library. This engineering report focuses on the contribution of speech analysis for transcript generation and alignment, and the use of these features in Library interface development. By deepening the automated analysis, such as using named entity extraction to identify people and place names in the audio transcript, better summaries and visualizations can be produced to navigate through Video libraries holding thousands of hours of material.
Catherine S. Todd - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment
Conflict and Health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Lisa S. Dulli, Sayed Omar Alami, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. Methods The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women ( n = 473) and men ( n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders ( shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities ( n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Results Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. Conclusion The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment.
Conflict and health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sayed Omar Alami, Lisa Dulli, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women (n = 473) and men (n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders (shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities (n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility
Human Resources for Health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. Methods CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. Results CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. Conclusions The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility.
Human resources for health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
Alexander G. Hauptmann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Video retrieval with the informedia digital Video Library system
Text REtrieval Conference, 2002Co-Authors: Alexander G. Hauptmann, Rong Jin, Norman Papernick, Ricky Houghton, Sue ThorntonAbstract:Background: The Informedia Digital Video Library System. The Informedia Digital Video Library [1] was the only NSF DLI project focusing specifically on information extraction from Video and audio content. Over a terabyte of online data was collected, with automatically generated metadata and indices for retrieving Videos from this Library. The architecture for the project was based on the premise that real-time constraints on Library and associated metadata creation could be relaxed in order to realize increased automation and deeper parsing and indexing for identifying the Library contents and breaking it into segments. Library creation was an offline activity, with Library exploration by users occurring online and making use of the generated metadata and segmentation. The goal of the Informedia interface was to enable quick access to relevant information in a digital Video Library, leveraging from derived metadata and the partitioning of the Video into small segments. Figure 1 shows the IDVLS interface following a query. In this figure, a set of results is displayed at the bottom. The display includes a window containing a headline, and a pictorial menu of Video segments each represented with a thumbnail image at approximately 1⁄4 resolution of the Video in the horizontal and vertical dimensions. The headline window automatically pops up whenever the mouse is positioned over a result item; the headline window for the first result is shown. IDVLS also supports other ways of navigating and browsing the digital Video Library. These interface features were essential to deal with the ambiguity of the derived data generated by speech recognition, image processing, and natural language processing. Consider the filmstrip and Video playback IDVLS window shown in Figure 2. For this actual Video in the IDVLS Library, the segmentation process failed, resulting in a thirty-minute segment. This long segment was one of the returned results for the query “Mir collision.” The filmstrip in Figure 2 shows that the segment is more than just a story on the Russian space station, but rather begins with a commercial, then the weather, and then coverage of Hong Kong before addressing Mir. By overlaying the filmstrip and Video playback windows with match location information, the user can quickly see that matches don’t occur until later in the segment, after these other stories that were irrelevant to the query. The match bars are optionally color-coded to specific query words; in Figure 2 “Mir” matches are in red and “collision” matches in purple. When the user moved the mouse over the match bars in the filmstrip, a text window displayed the actual matching word from the transcript or Video OCR metadata for that particular match; “Mir” is shown in one such text window in Figure 2. By investigating the distribution of match locations on the filmstrip, the user can determine the relevance of the returned result and the location of interest within the segment. The user can click on a match bar to jump directly to that point in the Video segment. Hence, clicking the mouse as shown in Figure 2 would start playing the Video at this mention of “Mir” with the overhead shot of people at desks. Similarly, IDVLS provided “seek to next match” and “seek to previous match” buttons in the Video player allowing the user to quickly jump from one match to the next. In the example of Figure 2, these interface features allowed the user to bypass problems in segmentation and jump directly to the “Mir” story without having to first watch the opening Video on other topics.
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Video classification and retrieval with the informedia digital Video Library system
Text REtrieval Conference, 2002Co-Authors: Alexander G. Hauptmann, Mark Derthick, Michael G. Christel, Rong Jin, Rong Yan, Mingyu Chen, Robert V Baron, Wei-hao LinAbstract:This paper is organized in three parts. The first part details some of the lower level shot classification work, the second part describes the ‘manual’ retrieval systems while the last section details the interactive retrieval system for the Carnegie Mellon University TREC Video Retrieval Track runs. The description of the data can be found elsewhere in the proceedings of the 2002 TREC conference Video track overview.
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TREC - Video Retrieval with the Informedia Digital Video Library System
2002Co-Authors: Alexander G. Hauptmann, Rong Jin, Norman Papernick, Ricky A. Houghton, Sue ThorntonAbstract:Background: The Informedia Digital Video Library System. The Informedia Digital Video Library [1] was the only NSF DLI project focusing specifically on information extraction from Video and audio content. Over a terabyte of online data was collected, with automatically generated metadata and indices for retrieving Videos from this Library. The architecture for the project was based on the premise that real-time constraints on Library and associated metadata creation could be relaxed in order to realize increased automation and deeper parsing and indexing for identifying the Library contents and breaking it into segments. Library creation was an offline activity, with Library exploration by users occurring online and making use of the generated metadata and segmentation. The goal of the Informedia interface was to enable quick access to relevant information in a digital Video Library, leveraging from derived metadata and the partitioning of the Video into small segments. Figure 1 shows the IDVLS interface following a query. In this figure, a set of results is displayed at the bottom. The display includes a window containing a headline, and a pictorial menu of Video segments each represented with a thumbnail image at approximately 1⁄4 resolution of the Video in the horizontal and vertical dimensions. The headline window automatically pops up whenever the mouse is positioned over a result item; the headline window for the first result is shown. IDVLS also supports other ways of navigating and browsing the digital Video Library. These interface features were essential to deal with the ambiguity of the derived data generated by speech recognition, image processing, and natural language processing. Consider the filmstrip and Video playback IDVLS window shown in Figure 2. For this actual Video in the IDVLS Library, the segmentation process failed, resulting in a thirty-minute segment. This long segment was one of the returned results for the query “Mir collision.” The filmstrip in Figure 2 shows that the segment is more than just a story on the Russian space station, but rather begins with a commercial, then the weather, and then coverage of Hong Kong before addressing Mir. By overlaying the filmstrip and Video playback windows with match location information, the user can quickly see that matches don’t occur until later in the segment, after these other stories that were irrelevant to the query. The match bars are optionally color-coded to specific query words; in Figure 2 “Mir” matches are in red and “collision” matches in purple. When the user moved the mouse over the match bars in the filmstrip, a text window displayed the actual matching word from the transcript or Video OCR metadata for that particular match; “Mir” is shown in one such text window in Figure 2. By investigating the distribution of match locations on the filmstrip, the user can determine the relevance of the returned result and the location of interest within the segment. The user can click on a match bar to jump directly to that point in the Video segment. Hence, clicking the mouse as shown in Figure 2 would start playing the Video at this mention of “Mir” with the overhead shot of people at desks. Similarly, IDVLS provided “seek to next match” and “seek to previous match” buttons in the Video player allowing the user to quickly jump from one match to the next. In the example of Figure 2, these interface features allowed the user to bypass problems in segmentation and jump directly to the “Mir” story without having to first watch the opening Video on other topics.
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Improving Access to Digital Video Archives through Informedia Technology
Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2001Co-Authors: Michael G. Christel, Howard D. Wactlar, Alexander G. HauptmannAbstract:Informedia research at Carnegie Mellon University combines speech recognition, image processing, and natural language processing to automatically index a digital Video Library. This engineering report focuses on the contribution of speech analysis for transcript generation and alignment, and the use of these features in Library interface development. By deepening the automated analysis, such as using named entity extraction to identify people and place names in the audio transcript, better summaries and visualizations can be produced to navigate through Video libraries holding thousands of hours of material.
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complementary Video and audio analysis for broadcast news archives
Communications of The ACM, 2000Co-Authors: Howard D. Wactlar, Michael G. Christel, Alexander G. Hauptmann, Ricky Houghton, Andreas M OlligschlaegerAbstract:Abstract The Informedia Digital Video Library system extracts information from digitized Video sources and allows full content search and retrieval over all extracted data. This extracted 'metadata' enables users to rapidly find interesting news stories and to quickly identify whether a retrieved TV news story is indeed relevant to their query. This article highlights two unique features: named faces and location analysis . Named faces automatically associate a name with a face, while location analysis allows the user to visually follow the action in the news story on a map and also allows queries for news stories by graphically selecting a region on the map. 1 The Informedia Digital Video Library Project The Informedia Digital Video Library project [1], initiated in 1994, uniquely utilizes integrated speech, image and natural language understanding to process broadcast Video. The project’s goal is to allow search and retrieval in the Video medium, similar to what is available today for text only. To enable this access to Video, fast, high-accuracy automatic transcriptions of broadcast news stories are generated through Carnegie Mellon’s Sphinx speech recognition system and closed captions are incorporated where available. Image processing determines scene boundaries, recognizes faces and allows for image similarity comparisons. Text visible on the screen is recognized through Video OCR and can be searched. Everything is indexed into a searchable digital Video Library [2], where users can ask queries and retrieve relevant news stories as results. The
Sayed Haroon Rastagar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment
Conflict and Health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Lisa S. Dulli, Sayed Omar Alami, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. Methods The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women ( n = 473) and men ( n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders ( shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities ( n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Results Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. Conclusion The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment.
Conflict and health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sayed Omar Alami, Lisa Dulli, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women (n = 473) and men (n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders (shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities (n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility
Human Resources for Health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. Methods CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. Results CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. Conclusions The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility.
Human resources for health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
Subarna Pradhan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment
Conflict and Health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Lisa S. Dulli, Sayed Omar Alami, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. Methods The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women ( n = 473) and men ( n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders ( shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities ( n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Results Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. Conclusion The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Feasibility and acceptability of a Video Library tool to support community health worker counseling in rural Afghan districts: a cross-sectional assessment.
Conflict and health, 2020Co-Authors: Leila C. Dal Santo, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sayed Omar Alami, Lisa Dulli, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Rural Afghan populations have low skilled birth attendance rates and high maternal and infant mortality. Insecurity and armed conflict, geographic barriers, and cultural norms often hinder women’s access to facility-based reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) services. Community health workers (CHWs) are critical agents for behavioral change in this and similarly fragile settings, where RMNCH information exposure is limited by low literacy and mass media access. We assessed the feasibility and acceptability of a computer tablet-based health Video Library (HVL) to enhance CHW counseling on RMNCH topics in three rural Afghan districts. The HVL was introduced by trained CHWs in 10 pilot communities within one rural district in each of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We used a mixed-methods study design to assess exposure to and perception of the HVL 6 months post-introduction. We surveyed married women (n = 473) and men (n = 468) with at least one child under 5 years and conducted in-depth interviews with CHWs and community leaders (shuras and Family Health Action groups) within pilot communities (n = 80). Program improvement needs were summarized using quantitative and qualitative data. Higher proportions of women in Balkh (60.3%) and Herat (67.3%) reported viewing at least one HVL Video compared to women in Kandahar (15%), while male HVL exposure was low (8–17%) across all districts. Most HVL-exposed clients (85–93% of women and 74–92% of men) reported post-Video counseling by CHWs. Nearly all (94–96% of women and 85–92% of men) were very interested in watching Videos on other health topics in the future. Participants recommended increasing the number of Videos and range of topics, using tablets with larger screens, and translating Videos into additional local languages to improve the HVL program. The HVL was a highly acceptable tool for relaying health information, but coverage of female audiences in Kandahar and male audiences broadly was low. The HVL should better engage men and other key influencers to engineer local solutions that directly facilitate male HVL exposure, indirectly improve women’s HVL access, and support collaborative spousal health decision-making. A larger efficacy trial is warranted to measure the HVL’s effect on knowledge and health-related behavioral outcomes.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility
Human Resources for Health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Background Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. Methods CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. Results CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. Conclusions The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
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Adapting a health Video Library for use in Afghanistan: provider-level acceptability and lessons for strengthening operational feasibility.
Human resources for health, 2020Co-Authors: Lara Lorenzetti, Jenae Tharaldson, Subarna Pradhan, Sayed Haroon Rastagar, Shafiqullah Hemat, Sharif A. H. Ahmadzai, Lisa S. Dulli, Amy Weissman, Catherine S. ToddAbstract:Community health workers (CHWs) in Afghanistan are a critical care extender for primary health services, including reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health (RMNCH) care. However, volunteer CHWs face challenges including an ever-expanding number of tasks and insufficient time to conduct them. We piloted a health Video Library (HVL) intervention, a tablet-based tool to improve health promotion and counseling by CHWs. We qualitatively assessed provider-level acceptability and operational feasibility. CHWs implemented the HVL pilot in three rural districts of Balkh, Herat, and Kandahar provinces. We employed qualitative methods, conducting 47 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with male and female CHWs and six IDIs with community health supervisors. We used semi-structured interview guides to explore provider perceptions of program implementation processes and solicit feedback on how to improve the HVL intervention to inform scale-up. We conducted a thematic analysis. CHWs reported that the HVL increased time efficiencies, reduced work burden, and enhanced professional credibility within their communities. CHWs felt Video content and format were accessible for low literacy clients, but also identified challenges to operational feasibility. Although tablets were considered easy-to-use, certain technical issues required continued support from supervisors and family. Charging tablets was difficult due to inconsistent electricity access. Although some CHWs reported reaching most households in their catchment area for visits with the HVL, others were unable to visit all households due to sizeable populations and gender-related barriers, including women’s limited mobility. The HVL was acceptable and feasible for integration into existing CHW duties, indicating it may improve RMNCH counseling, contributing to increased care-seeking behaviors in Afghanistan. Short-term challenges with technology and hardware can be addressed through continued training and provision of solar chargers. Longer-term challenges, including tablet costs, community coverage, and gender issues, require further consideration with an emphasis on equitable distribution.
