Background: Traditional gender roles result in women lagging behind men in the use of modern technologies,\nespecially in developing countries. Although there is rapid uptake of mobile phone use in Bangladesh, investigation\nof gender differences in the ownership, access and use of mobile phones in general and mHealth in particular has\nbeen limited. This paper presents gender differentials in the ownership of mobile phones and knowledge of\navailable mHealth services in a rural area of Bangladesh.\nMethods: We interviewed 4915 randomly selected respondents aged 18 years and above. Associations between gender\nand knowledge of available mHealth services, use of existing mHealth services and intentions to use mHealth services in\nthe future were examined by multivariate logistic regression analysis, controlling for the effect of categorised covariates.\nResults: Of the 4915 respondents to the survey, 61.8% of men (1213/1964) and 34.4% of women (1015/2951) owned a\nmobile phone. For men, mobile phone ownership was highest among those aged 18ââ?¬â??29 years (n = 663, 76.3%), and\nfor women among those aged 30ââ?¬â??39 years (n = 825, 44.7%). A higher proportion of men owned phones compared to\nwomen, irrespective of socioeconomic status (SES) as indicated by asset index (p < 0.001). Although mobile phone\nownership on average was lower among women, they were more likely to share their mobile phone with their family\nmembers (19.7%) compared to men (11.6%, p < 0.001). Greater number of men were more likely to be aware of the\nuse of mobile phones for healthcare compared to women (38.5% vs 26.5%, p < 0.001). Knowledge about available\nmHealth services was lower among women than men; however, intention to use mHealth services in the future was\nhigh for both genders, irrespective of age, education and socioeconomic status.\nConclusions: Compared to men, women are less likely to own a mobile phone and less aware of available mHealth\nservices, despite high intention to use mHealth among both genders. To optimise the use of mHealth services and to\nachieve equity of use, uptake strategies should target women, with a focus on the poorer and less educated groups.
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