Limitasi aksesibiliti gelandangan terhadap info kesihatan: kajian kes ke atas gelandangan di Kuala Lumpur / Mohd Alif Jasni …[et al.]

A study was conducted to explore the accessibility of homeless people to the use of mobile phones for health info. Usually, individuals or families who become homeless are often concentrated in urban areas in Malaysia. Many people assume that if they had better access to social support networks (such as the telephone), they would have better physical and health outcomes. Mobile phones offer connectivity to others without physical limitations. Therefore, communication using mobile phones (for example access to social support networks is also important for homeless people to get health info). This study uses a quantitative method by distributing questionnaires to 200 homeless people who have mobile phones around Kuala Lumpur. The findings of the study were analyzed using SPSS version 26. The findings of the study found that the majority of homeless people use the telephone to communicate instead of looking for health information. In terms of health status, homeless people were found to be aware of the chronic diseases they face. However, they are less concerned about their health. In fact, the findings found that homeless people are less aware of the available health applications. Most of them never used or downloaded the existing health apps. This situation leads to concern when the use of these mobile phones is not used to access health info among the homeless people. This situation leads to the need for the government to raise awareness among the homeless people to be more sensitive to their health status. The findings can also be used in helping to provide appropriate services to the homeless people and ensure they have access to health care. As a solution, the involvement of internet service providers to introduce appropriate and affordable internet plans for low-income groups or no source of income so that they have better accessibility in accessing health information in the future is a proactive action.