Fatema Khatun|Anita E. Heywood|Syed Manzoor Ahmed Hanifi|Mustafizur Rahman|Pradeep Ray|Siaw?Teng Liaw|Abbas Bhuiya
Gender differentials in readiness and use of mHealth services in a rural area of Bangladesh
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research|UNSW Sydney|International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research|University of Dhaka|UNSW Sydney|UNSW Sydney
traditional gender roles result women lagging behind men use modern technologies especially developing countries although rapid uptake mobile phone use bangladesh investigation gender differences ownership access use mobile phones general mhealth particular limited paper presents gender differentials ownership mobile phones knowledge available mhealth services rural area bangladesh interviewed 4915 randomly selected respondents aged 18 years associations gender knowledge available mhealth services use existing mhealth services intentions use mhealth services future examined multivariate logistic regression analysis controlling effect categorised covariates 4915 respondents survey 618 men 12131964 344 women 10152951 owned mobile phone men mobile phone ownership highest among aged 1829 years n 663 763 women among aged 3039 years n 825 447 higher proportion men owned phones compared women irrespective socioeconomic status ses indicated asset index p 0001 although mobile phone ownership average lower among women likely share mobile phone family members 197 compared men 116 p 0001 greater number men likely aware use mobile phones healthcare compared women 385 vs 265 p 0001 knowledge available mhealth services lower among women men however intention use mhealth services future high genders irrespective age education socioeconomic status compared men women less likely mobile phone less aware available mhealth services despite high intention use mhealth among genders optimise use mhealth services achieve equity use uptake strategies target women focus poorer less educated groups