Arogya World

Healthy schoolshealthy schools is Arogya World's first program and is a two-year school-based healthy living education program that teaches children between the ages of 11 to 14 the basics of eating right and increasing physical activity (important behaviors for preventing diabetes) before children's lifestyle habits are set. In 2023, the healthy schools program continued its scale-up and added another 600,000 kids through their strategic partners, child in need institute (cini) and sru innovation. The healthy schools program in 2023 educated children in the states of gujuratgujarat, karnataka, tamil nadi, uttar pradesh (up), and west bengal. The program is significantly supported by a multi-year grant from rural supporting india trust (rist).in 2023, the organization continued to work with dr. latha palaniappan and her team at stanford care (center for asian healthcare research and education) on 3rd party evaluation of the effectiveness of the healthy schools program over multiple years from 2015. Evaluation was completed and the manuscript has been submitted for publication.

Global advocacy and awareness:the organization pioneered bangalore as india's first Arogya city in 2022 with partners rotary and bpac. Arogya city is a program where the city's government, corporations, start-ups, educational institutes and civil society collaborate to improve the health and well-being of the people/ meaningful efforts that address ncd prevention and control, mental health and leverage the use of technology. In 2023, pledgemakerspledge makers celebrated the half-way mark and featured several of them who performed really well. Catalyst 2030 and indiaspora joined the organization as new partners and will help the organization expand this program to other cities. The Arogya city bengalaru campaign won the gold level award at the prestigious 2023 et kaleido award and was invited to be part of the bangalore design week'23. Throughout 2023, Arogya World continued to advance the "healthy dialogue" in india and globally. The organization engaged in and spoke and/or chaired at notable forums and conferences. The organization was invited to participate in strategic forums including ashoka aspire huddle, et women's conclave 2023, who south east asia conference, anemia sbcc collaborative think tank, catalyst 2030 india nutrition collaborative, nasscom healthtech and others.the organization won the prestigious innovation award presented by global digital health summit, expo and awards and importantly the csr impact awards creating impact in ncds. The organization's ceo was invited to join the cii national public health council.

Mythali:mythali is a nutritional tool that was developed based on india's national institute of nutrition guidelines. It addresses the most common challenge to healthy eating, teaching people about the importance of good nutrition and eating. It accomplishes this in picture form, showing what cooked foodwhat cooked food, someone should eat, and in what quantities, at each meal.mythali was first developed for urban women to empower them to prepare healthy meals for themselves and their families. With a recurring annual grant from the cigna foundation, the organization has leveraged social media, influencers, celebrity chefs, as well as the organization's healthy workplaces and disseminated educational articles written by the organization's nutritionist, to promote eating right among urban indians. The mythali campaign has been one of the most successful healthy eating consumer awareness programs. In 2023, the organization continued with the success of their 2022 mythali campaigns: red saree challenge for women's heart health in march where male influencers showed their support for women's heart health by wearing a red saree; and the highly successful annual #healthywalidiwali campaign in november. #healthywalidiwali, is a month-long annual campaign, which amassed a huge reach on social media platforms. The organization held a super chef challenge with student chefs from 20 culinary and hotel management colleges in bangalore. The organization also engaged with their healthy workplace program employees and shared information about the importance of healthy living, reading food labels etc. The organization started to assess the impact of its my thali program by forging partnerships with universities to initiate pilot studies and test effectiveness of mythali. Through its partnership with m.s. University of baroda, a study was initiated to assess the impact of mythali program (via social media) on the eating habits of 18-45 year old women in baroda. In addition, the organization also received a multi-year grant from together women rise to study the effectiveness of the mythali program in a rural setting. This is an innovative program integrating the rural mythali and with healthy schools' programs. For this impact study, the organization is partnering with the m.s. University of baroda (gujarat) to test the feasibility, effectiveness and impact of this integrative program among rural adolescent girls in schools. The study is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.the organization also launched a new nutrition tool called mydesiplate helping indian americans eat right during the diwali holidays using social media and partnering with indiaspora and south asian heart center. Mydesiplate is based on usda nutrition guidelines. The launch event was held in september and included a panel discussion on "the challenges of eating right" with invited nutritional experts. The organization also launched an innovative healthy recipes shopping tool with instacart in the u.s.

Mdiabetes (mhealth/technology):in 2023, Arogya continued to expand its mdiabetes program by leveraging mobile health technology as a smart solution to the ncd crisis. Mdiabetes is the organization's mobile phone messaging system using text messages/what's app that has a cumulative reach of 1.5 million people to date. The organization has helped people lead healthier lives by sending them text and voice messages in their local language, educating them about diabetes prevention and healthy living.with the support of rural india supporting trust (rist), the organization forged a new partnership in 2021 with the renowned lv prasad eye institute (lvpei) in hyderabad, india to educate villagers over two years through mdiabetes voice messages sent in their local language, telugu. This project built upon past mdiabetes projects with the integration into a community health education effort and reinforcement of the messages by frontline health workers. This project was completed in 20222022, but follow-up measurements were done in 2023 and a manuscript was developed by lv prasad eye institute. In addition, catalyst 2030 funded an mdiabetes program which we implemented in partnership with isap foundation and sri satya sarla memorial hospital. The organization tested a new model, using frontline workers to get 3,000 villagers to op-in to its mdiabetes program. Program is completed and data havehas been analyzedalso, results from the organization's google ai for social good project were published in the international joint conference on artificial intelligence paper in 2023. Httpswwwijcaiorgproceedings2023668 the project leveraged the use of ai to customize messages via what's app. The results showed that with the use of ai, significant improvements in the participants' diabetes-related knowledge, physical activity levels, and high-fat food avoidance were achieved when compared to a static message set.

Healthy workplacesthroughout 2023, Arogya World continued to advance the "healthy dialogue" in india and globally. The organization engaged in and spoke and/or chaired at notable forums and conferences. The organization was invited to participate in strategic forums including ashoka aspire huddle, et women's conclave 2023, who south east asia conference, anemia sbcc collaborative think tank, catalyst 2030 india nutrition collaborative, nasscom healthtech and others.the organization won the prestigious innovation award presented by global digital health summit, expo and awards and importantly the csr impact awards creating impact in ncds. The organization's ceo was invited to join the cii national public health council.