[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, is expanding the mobile healthcare project, which was conducted for residents with health risk factors such as blood pressure and triglycerides, to include children.
On the 5th, Nam-gu announced, "We have been selected for the 'Children and Adolescents Mobile Healthcare Pilot Project,' hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and organized by the Korea Health Promotion Institute," and stated, "We will officially proceed with the health promotion platform project incorporating information and communication technology (ICT) targeting 5th-grade students at Jangsan Elementary School in the district."
Mobile healthcare is an advanced method that links a smartphone app with a wearable activity tracker worn on the wrist, allowing individuals to check their health status and eliminate health risk factors.
Since being selected for a government public contest project in 2017, Nam-gu has provided related services to residents of various age groups, and from this year, the project target has been expanded to include children.
Additionally, to promote the pilot project, on the 26th of last month, Nam-gu visited Jangsan Elementary School and held an explanatory meeting about the mobile healthcare pilot project for about 40 students in two 5th-grade classes. Currently, the children are managing their health by linking smart bands with the healthcare app as they move between home and school, engaging in physical activities.
Along with this, the children voluntarily participate in an ICT-based non-face-to-face health management program for about six months until early January next year, learning proper health management and dietary habits using health information sent every Monday from the district office.
Furthermore, with the help of specialized public health center personnel consisting of nurses, nutritionists, and exercise therapists, health status is being cared for through monthly health change data monitoring.
A Nam-gu official said, "As a result of conducting related programs for adults, high satisfaction and excellent health improvement effects were confirmed. We expect good results from the project targeting children this time as well," and added, "If the effectiveness is proven, we plan to expand the number of participating students."
Meanwhile, in 2019, Nam-gu was selected as the base public health center for the Gwangju-Jeonbuk region after achieving the best performance in a regional evaluation conducted by the Korea Health Promotion Institute targeting 100 public health centers nationwide running mobile healthcare projects.
Also, in 2020, Nam-gu was selected as an excellent institution for the mobile healthcare project performance in the '12th Local Government Health Promotion Project Evaluation' hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
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