THE MAPUA University has teamed up with the Marinduque State College in creating a mobile app that aims to reduce disaster and health risk in the island province.

The mobile and web-based application called eSalba aims to help local government units in improving the disaster and health resiliency capabilities of the 54,000 households in Marinduque.

eSalba enables users to see the locations of those who will report incidents, the whereabouts of responders, areas for evacuation, and health centers in the community. Through the app LGUs will be able to implement a quick and coordinated disaster response.

“Under the Development of Health Index: Vulnerability to Extreme Environmental Events for Marinduque Island (D-HIVE) Project, team members from both higher educational institutions devised and created the health vulnerability indices (HVIs) for the three geopolitical levels of household, barangay, and municipality. It was then plotted on maps using a geographic information system, which is a component of the eSalba system to keep Marinduque locals resilient amid disasters,” Mapua explained.

“The D-HIVE is a community-based research and development project headed by Mapua University’s Dr. Delia Senoro, with funding from the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development,” it added.

There were 24 undergraduate students, 6 master’s program students, and four PhD students from Mapua, and 31 undergraduate students from MSC who participated in the project.

The project employed 9 fulltime researchers and 16 project staff and consultants.

Aside from eSalba, Senoro shared that phase 2 of the D-HIVE project started on September 16, 2020. The second phase will scale up eSalba’s capability by covering the whole MIMAROPA (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan) region

“Launching [of D-HIVE 4B Capital] will be carried out when the necessary data have been collected, curated, analyzed, and interpreted, and the eSalba system has been developed for the MIMAROPA region together with the necessary updating and automation,” Senoro said.