Abstract:
Digital fingerprints are increasingly used for patient care and treatment delivery, health
system monitoring and evaluation, and maintaining data integrity during health research. Yet,
no evidence exists about the use of fingerprinting technologies in maternal healthcare services in
urban slum contexts, globally. The present study aimed to explore the recently delivered women’s
willingness to give digital fingerprints to community health workers to access healthcare services
in the urban slums of Bangladesh and identify the associated factors. Employing a two-stage
cluster random sampling procedure, we chose 458 recently delivered women from eight randomly
selected urban slums of Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Chi-square tests were performed for descriptive
analyses, and binary logistic regression analyses were performed to explore the factors associated
with willingness to provide fingerprints. Overall, 78% of the participants reported that they were
willing to provide digital fingerprints if that eased access to healthcare services. After adjusting for
potential confounders, the sex of the household head, family type, and household wealth status were
significantly associated with the willingness to provide fingerprints to access healthcare services.
The study highlighted the potentials of using fingerprints for making healthcare services accessible.
Focus is needed for female-headed households, women from poor families, and engaging husbands
and in-laws in mobile health programs.
