Health Information Seeking Behaviour Study in Bangladesh: Household Survey and Qualitative Study, 2012-2016

To explore the role of ICTs in health information seeking, the UK Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) jointly conducted two household surveys. The first, during March to May 2014 was in three locations of Bangladesh; Chakaria (a rural sub-district), Mirzapur (a peri-urban sub-district) and Dhaka (five largest slums of the capital city). The second survey in August 2015 was of students at colleges in Chakaria and Mirzapur to study the behaviour of presumed early adaptors of mobile phone based access to the internet. Qualitative methods were used to probe more deeply into the attitudes of people to different sources of health information and explore the process of diffusion of new types of health-information seeking behaviour. The first stage of qualitative work provided insights that both informed the final shape of the quantitative survey and provided qualitative data. Thereafter special studies examined in greater depth special areas of interest, such as individuals and groups with specific conditions or exemplifying emergent behaviours.