Marshall Islands

The authors describe the development of a distance learning health education program for rural communities that developed a network of rural community learning centers to employ distance learning technologies for community-driven peer education in isolated areas of the Marshall Islands. [adapted from abstract]

Human resources for health are non-existent in many parts of the world and the outer islands of Marshall Islands in Micronesia are prime examples. While the more populated islands with hospital facilities are often successful in recruiting qualified health professionals from overseas, the outer islands generally have very limited health resources, and are thus less successful. In an attempt to provide reasonable health services to these islands, indigenous people were trained as Health Assistants (HA) to service their local communities.