ABSTRACT
Women in low-resource settings often fail to recognise their latent health information needs. This is closely linked to the high levels of health illiteracy in these areas. Women are unable to source trustworthy information needed to stay healthy and manage their conditions. Although health information intermediaries (HIIs), including community leaders and low-tech tools, have been effective in empowering rural women, the HIIs are limited by socio-economic and sociocultural barriers that also plague the women. To address these challenges, this chapter investigates how the concept of frugal innovation can be deployed to equip HIIs to empower rural women to identify their latent health information needs, obtain reliable health information with unrestricted access, and present this information clearly for easy understanding. The Frugal Empowerment Model (FEMHI) for HIIs and a viable toolkit are recommended to guide policymakers, non-profits, and all stakeholders in incorporating frugal concepts for designing effective, low-cost, and sustainable health promotion interventions in resource-deprived areas.
