Before the recent Ebola outbreak, the terms “contact tracing” and “Ebola” were spoken by only a small community of public health specialists consisting of infectious disease physicians and epidemiologists. As total cases of Ebola Virus Disease reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) exceed 10,000 across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone – almost 5000 of those fatal – these terms are increasingly entering general conversation.

What is Ebola contact tracing?

Rapid contact tracing is essential to the identification and isolation of symptomatic cases of Ebola disease, interrupting secondary transmission, and slowing exponential spread of the virus. It involves identification, documentation, and monitoring of all individuals who have come in contact with a single symptomatic case. In many cases, this is an analogue process of recording data on paper case notification, contact follow-up and field report forms, transporting those to a data entry center, and entering them into an electronic database. In other cases, mobile device can be used in the field for direct data entry into an electronic database.

Contacts have been exposed and are at risk for developing Ebola disease, but have yet to show symptoms. This is where understanding a few basics about Ebola virus and disease is helpful.

  • Transmission: direct contact with the body fluids of someone, ill or deceased, with symptoms of Ebola disease; or contact with objects contaminated by their body fluids

  • Symptoms: fever, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, unexplained bleeding or bruising, and muscle pain developing up to 21 days after exposure to the virus

If a contact develops symptoms within the 21 days of monitoring, they are immediately isolated and contact tracing begins for this new symptomatic case.

Ebola and Contact Tracing 

Contact tracing can get complicated, so much so that the CDC has a dedicated program, the Epidemic Intelligence Service, to build US health professional capacity and expertise to do so. A single Ebola case can result in the need to trace numerous contacts. In the early outbreak stages, rapid response is most critical as contact tracing efforts are somewhat manageable. If not contained, exponential transmission can make contact tracing efforts unwieldy, as is the case in the current West Africa Ebola outbreak.

Why is it so difficult to integrate mobile phones for contact tracing?

Several challenges in contact tracing could potentially be addressed with mobile solutions. Given wide geographic spread, remote locations and limited resources, real-time data collection and monitoring with mobile phones could facilitate rapid alert of new cases and contact follow-up. These tools could reduce time lag between data collected in the field and response, and serve as a more relevant basis for assessment and prioritization of control interventions. Given that solutions are developed with the Principles for Digital Development in mind, particularly open standards, open data, and open source software, the use of mobiles could address asynchronous data collection and reporting while lowering barriers to stakeholder collaboration.

Irrespective of the integration of mobile devices, contact tracing in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia presents challenges unique from those in which the methods were developed. How do you identify and quarantine an affected patient effectively in a culture where many objects – from mattresses, toilets and food, to the burden of caring for the ill– are shared? How can reliable data be collected if interviewees intentionally misdirect or misinform surveillance officers in fear of response efforts? Social behavioral change communication could address these challenges, with mobiles playing a role.

Several groups are currently working to address data related issues in the West Africa Ebola outbreak. Notably, the World Health Organization’s Harmonized Ebola Response built on the Ona platform, the Ebola Open Data Jam, and mHero, a collaborative effort partnering IntraHealth International’s iHRIS software and UNICEF’s mobile messaging platform RapidPro. Three initiatives running in parallel leave one questioning if any single effort is actually impacting harmonization?

The challenges hindering rapid integration of mobile solutions are not necessarily unique from larger challenges in implementing mobile solutions, nor aid for that matter. Do you understand the user and ecosystem, did you design for sustainability and scale, and did you leverage opportunities for collaboration? There are suggestions that the WHO and mechanisms for responding to global health challenges are outdated, positioning the West Africa Ebola outbreak as a defining moment in their reevaluation. Perhaps it will also bring new perspective to effective leverage of mobile solutions.

Are you a “healthie”, “techie” or someone in-between interested in the use of technology in global health? Then don’t miss your chance to join course facilitator Kendra Keith and the next cohort of TC309: Mobiles for Public Health starting November 17th, 2014!

The field of digital data collection is constantly and rapidly changing, and as we’ve seen in the many iterations of our online courses on Mobiles for International Development and mHealth, Magpi has been a leading innovator in mobile data collection.

That’s why we were not surprised to learn that Magpi has been ranked “Top Digital Data Collection App” by Kopernik, a Rockefeller Foundation and Asia Community Ventures non-profit that ranks technology for development tools in their “Impact Tracker Technology” program.

Rankings for this category were based on scoring for criteria including affordability, usability, rapidity – the “ability to send and receive large volumes of data on a real-time basis”, scalability, and transferability – “flexibility in using the services for different purposes, sectors, and contexts”. This is first time Magpi has appeared on this Kopernik list where the judges tested the tools in the field.

For those who might not yet be familiar with Magpi, it is a user-friendly mobile data collection application that works on various mobile devices. Magpi uses SMS and audio messaging, and is built specifically for organizations with limited IT and financial resources. The company formally known as DataDyne is now Magpi and they have retired the DataDyne name as well as updated their website here, which lists some of the new comprehensive features they’ve recently added. Magpi is led by Joel Selanikio, who is also an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Department of Pediatrics

Congratulations to the Magpi team! We look forward to having you guys join us again in our upcoming online courses!

For my final project for TC105: Mobiles for International Development, I decided to interview Amy Sweeney of GeoPoll, one of the guest speakers of our class. Working on global development issues, I am deeply interested in new opportunities offered by technology, particularly how it allows people living even in the poorest countries to share information through mobile devices. GeoPoll strikes me as one of the most innovative players in this field and for this reason I decided to go back to Amy and ask her to describe GeoPoll’s work in more detail.

Since the interview I have also been amazed to learn that some of my colleagues at the organisation I work for, the OECD, already collaborate with GeoPoll on a ‘data revolution’ project that will contribute to more accessible information on development in the next few years… one more proof that there are no coincidences in life. I am now in touch with them on a regular basis to see how the project will evolve.

Interview with Amy Sweeney, Director of Business Development, GeoPoll

GeoPoll is a mobile survey platform that allows you to carry out mobile surveys in any country in the world except North Korea. Technically GeoPoll is registered as a US small business but it sees itself more as a social enterprise. It is eligible for both grants and contracts by US and international funders alike.

GeoPoll Overview

1. How would you define your added value compared to your competitors? What is your unique approach to mobile surveys?

GeoPoll’s approach is to reach as many people as possible regardless of their income or status. While many mobile surveys require the use of the Internet or web-based applications, we offer the opportunity to take a survey just by using any mobile phone (e.g., feature phones all the way up to smart phones). We aim to reach a greater portion of the ‘bottom billion’ people through simple text or voice messaging. There are other players in our market, particularly local companies, but we are different in that we establish partnerships with mobile network operators. We serve as a platform but also serve as a “sample  source”. We have access to more than 150+ million mobile subscribers in Africa alone. We can achieve more reach, scale, and connections with these operators than anyone else.

GeoPoll – How Our Platform Works

2. Who are your primary clients? Do you foresee any major change in their composition?

Roughly half of our business is with the social sector, e.g. international organisations like WFP and USAID, NGOs, etc. The remaining half is with commercial companies and market research groups but this percentage is likely to increase this year due to recent media measurement products produced.

3. Are you planning to collaborate again with the World Bank and the UNDP My World Survey?

The collaboration with the World Bank in 2010 was for the World Development Report focused on community-based consultations on gender-based violence in DR Congo. World Bank’s annual World Development Reports cover a different topic and a different country every year. At the moment there are no plans to collaborate again on a World Development Report in the near future but we are exploring other opportunities with the World Bank. The same goes for the My World Survey.

4. How do you ensure free participation or even incentives for survey takers? And who covers these costs?

GeoPoll connects with mobile network operators’ billing systems allowing mobile subscribers to participate in mobile surveys at no cost (e.g.:. zero-rated or free to respond to). For example, those that do not have airtime credit on their phones can still participate. Each carrier is different but ultimately our agreement with them ensures that the survey comes at no cost to the survey taker, which reduces the economic barrier for participation.

5. Is there such a thing as an average response rate? Does it vary across regions, gender or any other big factor?

Responses to our surveys really depend on the country and the topic in question. We have noticed that the response rate increases over time as survey takers get to know GeoPoll as a reliable service. Once trust has been built people feel more comfortable taking the survey. Also, we have done some testing that shows that response rates tend to increase with incentives. Another approach we have taken which has been widely successful is running panel-based surveys, including measuring TV viewership and radio listenership ratings, in several African countries. In that case, response rates have been astronomically high because users are engaged on a daily basis.

I hope you will find this interview useful. I’m excited to see that Amy Sweeney is coming back as a guest speaker for TechChange’s upcoming Mobiles for International Development course! Also, feel free to connect with me via Twitter (@faridabena) to continue our discussion on mobiles for development.

Interested in mobile data and other ways mobile phones bring understanding to the world? Join our upcoming online course on Mobiles for International Development.

 

About Amy Sweeney

Amy Sweeney

Amy Sweeney is the director of business development for GeoPoll based in Washington, DC. Prior to joining GeoPoll, Ms. Sweeney spent nearly five years developing and honing her international development experience at Chemonics, where she held the position as new business director in Caucasus and Central Asia RBU. She previously served in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan and worked in Afghanistan and Turkey. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

About Farida Bena

Farida Bena

Farida Bena is the Economist / Policy Analyst at Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based in Paris, France. She has more than 15 years of experience working in development, humanitarian aid, and global advocacy across four continents. Before joining OECD, Ms. Bena has worked as the director at the International Rescue Committee Belgium and led the Aid Effectiveness Policy team at Oxfam International. Ms. Bena holds a master’s degree in International Relations from Yale University.

My current focus on tourism development led me to explore how some of the tech tools discussed in the Mobiles for International Development class can be applied in the tourism industry. In particular, a large part of the tourism assessment and development process involves both evaluating the visitor experience in a destination and examining the attitudes of local residents towards tourism development.

Surveys are the most common tools for carrying out these evaluations, but most of the time they result in stacks of papers that need to be keyed into a computer, introducing errors and wasting valuable time. In the M4D class, we saw a physical example of this where a pickup truck was loaded with stacks of questionnaires.

Today, mobiles and tablets are overcoming the challenges faced by paper-based surveys and evaluations as they bring efficiency, a variety of user-friendly survey platforms, and real-time feedback.

1. Quick and easy access to better processed surveys
Compared with paper questionnaires, a more efficient data collection method would be to use the Formhub tool that we learned about during the course. The additional cost of purchasing a few basic tablets and rugged cases could be offset by savings in labor costs for data entry and the added value of the data being processed in a more timely and accurate manner.

2. Variety of user-friendly survey platforms
The advantage of a tablet over a smartphone is that the tablet more closely resembles a paper format questionnaire, making it easy to hand over to visitors or residents to complete. Formhub can also be used offline; completed questionnaires can be uploaded once a connection is reestablished, making it particularly useful in remote tourism destinations lacking wifi or cell service.

Since visitor surveys are usually carried out in places where large numbers of tourists congregate (city plazas, transportation system waiting areas, etc.), the survey-takers often hand out paper forms to many people simultaneously, presenting a potential disadvantage for Formhub if only a few tablets are available. A potential solution could be a QR code to scan that takes tourists to a web site on their own personal smartphones to complete the questionnaire. This method could be used in conjunction with the tablets (i.e. tablets could be used for those visitors without smart phones). There would have to be measures in place to ensure that the same person doesn’t submit multiple questionnaires, but I think that could be designed relatively simply.

3. Real-time feedback
Another way to make surveys valuable to both tourists and destination planners and developers, would be to couple geolocation with an SMS service. Tourists could opt in to the program upon arrival at a destination, and upon entering certain geofences they would automatically receive an informational text describing the attraction with links to more information if they’re interested. For instance, upon approaching a monument a visitor could receive historical information about the attraction, or upon entering a local market the user could receive a link to a detailed map showing where certain stalls are located. This system could be coupled with an SMS survey system like TextIt. This way, the destination could get real-time feedback from tourists about certain aspects of an attraction as the visitor is experiencing it (i.e. rating scale questions about customer service, facilities, etc.). This would help to eliminate the problem of recall bias that often exists when tourists are asked to recall certain aspects of their trip days (or weeks) after it’s over.

There’s obviously a ton of potential for mobile tech in the context of tourism, from the inspiration and planning stages, to booking and experiencing, to sharing the tourism experience with others. I’m super excited to see what kind of apps and novel technologies will be launched in the next few years to further enhance and add layers of value to the tourism experience.

About Jason Kreiselman

Jason Kreiselman

When he’s not backpacking through far-off corners of the planet, Jason Kreiselman works as a digital marketing specialist with Brand USA in Washington DC helping to promote international visitation to the U.S. He also works with the International Institute of Tourism Studies conducting tourism research for public and private sector clients. Jason spent four years in Ecuador as an ICT Advisor to the Peace Corps where he worked to promote small businesses and secure grants for organizations focusing on environmental conservation and sustainable development.

Jason holds a Master of Tourism Administration degree with a concentration in Sustainable Destination Management from The George Washington University. You can find him on LinkedIn here.

Interested in learning more about this topic of digital options for surveys and evaluation? Register now for our Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation online course, which runs 26 January – 20 February 2015.

Photo credit: TextIt

I am not tech savvy. I do not keep up with the newest phones or gadgets and I have no idea how to build a website. However, I have been texting for many years and I know that if I can master the SMS system and stay connected through messaging, anyone can. Which is why I was so impressed by TextIt, a messaging platform that is simple yet can achieve so much- from surveying dispersed populations to disseminating life-saving information that may not have otherwise reached its target destinations.

When learning about the tool and using it in the Mobiles for International Development class, I was thinking about access, a main concern of mine within international development. Not only did I find TextIt accessible to me as the creator of a campaign in terms of the ease of building an SMS flow (again, if I can do it, most people can), but also in the array of possibilities of its relevance. Whether it is access to clean water, healthcare, education, or safe roads, TextIt provides a platform for people on the ground, even those in the most remote areas, to communicate their experiences and needs through the tips of their fingers.

In my own field of interest, namely providing access to education to marginalized populations in developing countries and humanitarian settings, I believe TextIt could be an asset. I can see it being used for purposes of teacher training, of understanding if a regional school system is being inclusive of the community’s children with disabilities, or even in a post-disaster situation, letting communities know about impromptu schools being set up by organizations and finding how many children are not in school. The possibilities are countless.

TextIt has the potential to expand more widely in several areas. Currently, it only operates on Android phones and I would hope that the developers are working to make it accessible to other mobile companies so as to increase access. In addition, survey taking may not be familiar to some cultures and seeing the large-scale success of TextIt could take a lot of time. Though the SMS system may be quick, cost efficient and reach many people, it does eliminate the human aspect of international development and the nuances of person to person conversations are lost through the mobile devices (for example, you can survey a group of villagers about the infrastructure in the area, but unless the person developing a campaign physically goes to see the area, much of the reality is lost). Moreover, a survey that is not well-planned or well-worded or inaccurate information is being sent out could cause mistrust of the system and the senders and people will stop using it.

Overall, I think using TextIt as an international development tool encourages more creativity, pushing professionals to think beyond traditional methods of interaction with their beneficiaries. Personally, I see myself finding a way to incorporate TextIt in my future projects and hopefully with that, I will become just a bit more tech savvy.

About Yael Shapira

Yael Shapira TechChange alumni

Yael Shapira works as Assistant Director of International Relations, Graduate School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University and recently completed TC105: Mobiles for International Development. Yael received an M.A. in International Education from GW in 2012, with an academic focus on providing access to education to marginalized populations in conflict and post-conflict settings, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa. She has lived and worked in Ethiopia, India, Israel, Niger and Switzerland, where she planned and implemented educational projects for refugees, street children, children with disabilities and other populations. Yael received her Bachelor’s in International Relations from Boston University in 2009. She was born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel.

Interested in learning more about TextIt and other mobile platforms in the context of global development? Join us for an online course on Mobiles for International Development.

What role can mobile phones play in distributing a survey and collecting feedback and data from respondents? In particular, how can we use mobile technology to reach out to and engage individuals in developing countries that tend to be underrepresented in global surveys?

In the recent My World 2015 survey launched in December 2012 in honor of the end of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and the establishment of a new “post-2015” global development framework, the United Nations Development Program, the UN Millennium Campaign, the Overseas Development Institute, the ONE campaign, and over 700 on-the-ground grassroots organizations as well as international and local information technology companies created and continue to implement a worldwide survey seeking to collect the opinions of individuals everywhere on what matters most to them when it comes the future.

Survey respondents are asked to vote on 6 out of a possible 17 policy priorities, including a fill-in-the-blank priority that the individuals can add themselves. The survey aims to examine the public policy priorities of individuals across the globe. The survey allows respondents to choose 6 out of 16 pre-selected priorities or to submit their own priority in a 17th ‘fill-in-the-blank’ option. Respondents have participated in the survey via pen-and-paper ballot, via a central website, and through mobile technology (SMS, IVR, and a mobile application).

Here are five findings on the ways mobile phones have been leveraged for distributing the My World 2015 survey:

1. About 20% of over 2 million votes have come in via mobile phones.

2. Over 70% of the mobile phone respondents live in developing countries. These participants came from nations that score low on the Human Development Index (versus 31% in the overall survey).

3. More men have responded via mobile than women. (at a rate of 2 male respondent for every one female), and respondents via mobile tend to prioritize better job opportunities at a slightly higher rate than the majority of respondents.

4. Mobile distribution benefited heavily from local and international partnerships and, as with the web, more immediate and centralized collection of the data was possible. In implementation, the mobile phone promotion and distribution of the survey differed slightly from the pen-and-paper and web distribution of the survey.

5. A survey is only as effective as its promotion and distribution. Local and international partnerships helped distribute the survey through targeted high tech, low tech and no tech campaigns. Promotion for all three of the survey distribution methods included integrated campaigns targeting specific national and regional audiences as well as ongoing global efforts to raise awareness and foster interest in the survey.

How do these results so far compare to your own surveys? What kind of mobile data collection methods have you used in your projects and organizations? What challenges have you faced in gathering this feedback and engaging with survey participants in developing countries?

Linda Warnier OECD

Linda Warnier is a Communication Officer at OECD and an alumna of TechChange’s Mobiles for International Development online course. She develops and implements digital strategies and uses paid and free tools to plan and perform online impact assessments for large international organisations including the OECD and, before that, the European Commission.

To read Linda’s full report of My World 2015 and Mobiles, please click here.

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To discuss this topic and similar issues related to mobile phones and data collection, be sure to join us for our upcoming online courses on Mobiles for International Development course and Technology for Monitoring & Evaluation!

Kathy Calvin, President and CEO of UN Foundation. (Photo credit: Johns Hopkins SAIS. Photo by Kaveh Sardari Photography)

Last Friday, the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) launched its second annual Global Women in Leadership Conference with this year’s theme on “Technology in Action: Changing the Way Women Live and Work”. Throughout the day, female leaders spanning various aspects of the tech industry from across the world joined over 300 conference attendees to discuss the growing role of women in technology.

Supporting women in tech has always been important to TechChange and we’ve been excited to work with several organizations in this space. For example, we’ve worked with TechGirls at the State Department, Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA), and partnered with USAID to create a course on Gender in Political Transition Environments. At the conference, it was great to hear from TechChange partners including MAMA’s Executive Director, Kirsten Gagniare, and Christopher Burns, Senior Advisor and Team Lead for Mobile Access at USAID, as they discussed mHealth and mobiles for international development. I found it personally inspiring to meet and hear from all of these female trailblazers in tech from across the world including Roya Mahboob, one of the first female IT CEOs in Afghanistan, and many more women leaders in technology driven industries.

In case you missed the event, here are a few highlights from this conference on women and technology:

  1. Mobile is the future to empowering women worldwide. ICT4D and women’s global access to technology, especially mobile phones, was a strong theme throughout the event. According to keynote speaker, Kathy Calvin, President and CEO of the UN Foundation, there are currently more mobile phones than people in Africa. Also, the gender gap in mobile phone usage is wide: women have 300 million less mobile subscriptions than men.

Mayra Buvinic, Senior Fellow at the UN Foundation discussed how mobile phones empower women with mobility and privacy for financial transactions. A specific example of this empowerment is via M-PESA, which has been championed by women and has become a global model for mobile money, according to Jalak Jobanputra, venture capitalist and Managing Partner of FuturePerfect Ventures. With the excitement of emerging mobile technology, ThoughtWorks CTO, Rebecca Parson, highlighted an important point on how cultural and local context matters in ICT4D. She shared a poignant anecdote on a water project in Africa that was sabotaged by the women of a particular village. The motivation behind this damage was to preserve the already limited external interaction among the females of this community; the water pump technology took away the opportunity for women to interact with each other when they would collectively fetch water for their families.

2. Education is key for women to succeed in tech. In the conference’s final panel on “Leveling the Field: Expanding Economic Opportunities”, panelists shared several resources for women to build up their technical acumen and to get involved in tech communities. Be sure to check out groups and organizations like Tech LadyMafia, Rails Girls, CodeChix, Girls Who Code, and taking online courses with TechChange! Proficiency in tech tools opens up options for women in terms of job opportunities and work arrangements such as telecommuting and flexible work schedules when using collaborative software.

3. Women as consumers and producers of tech will result in products more catered to women. Jennifer Sherman, Senior Vice President of Product Mangement at Aptean, made a strong business case for design teams to consider women when creating new tech products. As tech companies are looking to grow their customer base, they will need to understand what women want as more women want to buy tech products that are specifically designed and built to meet their needs.

What was your favorite takeaway from the conference? How will the world be shaped by women consuming and producing more technology? Let us know your thoughts!

By Lauren Bailey, TC309: mHealth – Mobile Phones for Public Health alumna

Lauren Bailey

My final project for TechChange’s mHealth online course overlapped a final project for a master level global environmental health course. I’m currently working towards a Master of Public Health degree, concentrating in global environmental health, and specifically focusing in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). I recently became interested in mHealth and decided to do my global environmental health course project on mHealth in the WASH sector. Since I was new to mHealth, I kept the project simple, touching on some basics. This background document includes: (1) applications of mHealth in WASH; (2) case studies; and (3) recommendations.

Throughout TC309, I became increasingly interested in how mHealth can be applied to behavior change, a major component of reducing WASH-related illness. The mHealth online course has been a wonderful way to learn about the different applications of mHealth, the challenges and successes of programs, and the future possibilities of mHealth. I’ve been inspired by many of the articles, discussions, and live presentations and am now incorporating mHealth into my master’s thesis.

Here is the infographic I created, using Piktochart as part of my course project:

mHealth-in-WASH-infographic_Lauren Bailey

Highlights:

  1. Mobile phones offer a means to reach most at-risk populations, particularly those in rural areas, to change health outcomes.
  2. More individuals in most African countries will have access to a mobile phone than they will to an improved water source by 2013.
  3. Mobile phones have been deployed over the past decade as tools to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene.
  4. Client education and behavior change communication, data collection and reporting, financial transactions and incentives, and supply chain management are potential mHealth applications categories.

To read Lauren’s entire final project from the online course, mHealth: Mobile Phones for Public Health, please click here.

Interested in learning more about how mobile phones are impacting WASH, healthcare, and promoting health worldwide? Register now for our 4-week online on mHealth here.

 

How would you define mHealth?

Check out these mHealth definitions from a few of the attendees from last December’s mHealth Summit 2013 in Washington, DC, including several speakers and alumni from our mHealth online course:

Do you define mHealth differently or similarly? How has mHealth impacted your life and work?

Let us know, and join us for our next round of TC309: mHealth – Mobile Phones for Public Health!

Mercy (pictured with Maeghan Ray Orton from Medic Mobile) at UMCom workshop in Malawi

Posted by TechChange alumnus, Neelley Hicks, ICT4D Director of United Methodist Communications.

Mobile phones seem to be everywhere in Africa, and they’re keeping people in touch with health, education, banking, and community empowerment.

“Email and Facebook are problems…but this text messaging – it’s no problem,” says Betty Kazadi Musau who lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In early August 2013, I spent the week with Mercy Chikhosi Nyirongo, who provides healthcare in communities in Malawi. Recently, she took an online course through TechChange called “Mobile Phones for Public Health.” She wondered what impact mobile phones could have on her health program in Madisi, so she conducted a test.

The problem: HIV+ men were not coming to the support group and health management classes.

The test: Separate into two control groups – one would receive text reminders about the next meeting and the other would not.

The results: Out of the 20 who did not receive text messages, five attended. Out of the 30 who did receive text messages, 25 attended and were standing in queue when she arrived.

One client said, “You reached me where I was.” This isn’t a small thing. Often community health workers walk miles to find someone only to learn they are away. But the mobile phones stay with the person – making them much easier to reach.

Mercy conducted this test directly through her mobile phone and it took her nearly all day. But with FrontlineSMS, she can enter mobile numbers easily for group messaging. She said, “After the online course, the UMCom workshop (in Blantyre), and these conversations, my eyes have become wide open.”

Join us in our next round of Mobiles for International Development and mHealth: Mobiles for Public Health online courses! 

To read the original post on Neelley’s blog, “Stories in ICT4D”, please click here.