Three Step Solution
1. Free Health Screenings
We partner with community clinics to offer free health screenings to low-income people without medical insurance to raise awareness of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
Awareness is the first step to combat lifestyle diseases in Africa.
The goal is to offer the screenings annually and to encourage people to take regular health checkups.
2. Free Health Advice
After the screenings, we offer a free health report that includes advice on lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise to improve health outcomes.
We will develop an application that records an end user’s health checkup result and health risk report year after year. This will also be available on paper for end users who do not have a smartphone.
With the app to be developed, end users will be able to see the trend in their health conditions, and this will encourage them to do health checkups regularly and to take initiative to change their lifestyle behaviour to reduce their risk.
3. Access to Information and Resources
For people found to be already affected by lifestyle diseases, we give them access to resources such as referrals to affordable clinics, diabetes organizations, information about affordable healthy meal kits, etc,.
At a macro level, there is need to connect all the service providers in one place for the end users to access the resources needed. There is also need to cooperate with governments, which have the largest reach and resources to effect the change envisioned.
Expected Outcomes
- One outcome is to increase the awareness of these diseases.
- Another is to increase the number of people practicing prevention behaviours.
- The third outcome is to connect those at risk or already suffering to affordable service providers such as healthcare facilities, NPOs, healthy meal kit providers, etc.
Eventually, the goal is to reduce the number of people dying from these diseases. Prevention and control of the diseases could save millions of lives per year.
Why it Works: Putting the end user in charge
Our solution puts the end user in charge of their health. We want to empower the end user to take charge of their own health. We will provide a health risk report, which will motivate people to improve their behavior. We have done preliminary research on this, and confirmed that people are happy to have free health checkups, and that a risk report will encourage them to change their behavior.
- At a micro level, there is need to empower the end user to take charge of their own health
- “I like the health report because I can get advice. Once I know the risk, I can take initiative to reduce the risk.” quote from a 50-year old interviewee.
At a macro level, there is need to connect all the service providers in one place for the end users to access the resources needed. There is also need to cooperate with governments, which have the largest reach and resources to effect the change envisioned.
To this end, we will develop an application that records an end user’s health checkup result and health risk report year after year. This will also be available on paper for end users who do not have a smartphone.
This enables end-users to be owners of their own data, to be able to see the trend in their health conditions, and encourage them to do health checkups regularly and to take initiative to change their lifestyle behaviour to reduce their risk.
Sustainable Funding Model
Afya Msingi is a non-profit organization. However, we aim to be sustainable by generating income to support our activities, in addition to seeking funding from support organizations such as impact investors and grants from philanthropic organizations.
Afya Msingi aims to provide free health check-up and follow-up services to low-income groups, charging a small fee for those who can afford it, while selling a health risk prediction solution from the aggregated and anonymized health check-up data to insurance companies and other interested parties to generate revenue which will be redirected to the social mission of preventative healthcare for all.
Please contact us for more information.
Afya Ngao Africa 