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One of the ways to address the critical gap of trained human resources in health is to train frontline workers (FLW) on health prevention and health promotion. The FLW play an important role in community mobilization, outreach activities, and service delivery at the last mile. In rural India, the number of internet and smartphone users is rapidly increasing, presenting an opportunity to reach and virtually train FLW. The current evidence base shows progress towards creating and using mobile-based training, but significant work is needed to improve the quality of mobile-based training programs. This study showcases Project Samvad’s experience in creating and rolling out a virtual training course for FLW, highlighting the feasibility of virtual training at scale and the quality of engagement of the participants with the course content. The method for this descriptive study is divided into two broad categories: (i) course development, promotion, and rollout processes, and (ii) course evaluation. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to collect and analyze data. We found that the overall average course completion rate was 82% (992 out of 1211 registrants). The average increase in the endline question accuracy was around 15 percentage points from the baseline. We conclude that mobile-based virtual training of FLW is feasible and program managers and policymakers should consider creating hyperlocal course content, ensure participation of partners at various stages of development and rollout of the course and use a peer-to-peer and community-led system to support the learners.

Background: At the onset of COVID-19, lockdowns and movement restrictions were put in place to control the pandemic, which halted in-person, non-COVID-19 public health and information sharing activities and field visits. To reach beneficiaries during this time, Project Samvad, funded by USAID India and led by Digital Green, implemented a supplementary intervention to share health and nutrition-related advisories among the communities using digital media tools like WhatsApp and interactive voice response (IVR). Digital Green repurposed its videos on health and nutrition in order to share them via digital means. Digital Green evaluated the feasibility of the adapted approaches using digital media tools and capacity building of community-level frontline workers to enhance their knowledge and skills through virtual training programs. Methods: A telephonic survey was conducted among community and frontline workers. 299 community members from three Indian states, i.e., Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha, where WhatsApp and IVR advisories were sent, and 224 frontline workers were interviewed in five states Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Uttarakhand using a quantitative questionnaire developed in ODK. Result: Our analysis indicates that the reach of active phone numbers is high (76% of frontline workers and 73% of community members). The exposure to WhatsApp videos is good; 79% of frontline workers and 49% of community members watched videos on WhatsApp. However, only 33% of community members received IVR messages. Conclusion: By increasing the size and reach of the phone database, improving frontline workers’ training quality, and increase digital literacy among the community, the outreach of digital media tools can be enhanced to improve the health and nutrition outcomes.