Effectiveness of sms technology on timely community health worker follow-up for childhood malnutrition: A retrospective cohort study in sub-Saharan Africa
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Date
2018Author
Sarma, Shohinee
Nemser, Bennett
Cole-Lewis, Heather
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The Millennium Villages Project facilitated technology-based health interventions in rural under-resourced areas of subSaharan Africa. Our study examined whether data entry using SMS compared with paper forms by community health workers (CHWs) led
to higher proportion of timely follow-up visits for malnutrition screening in under-5 children in Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda.: Children under 5 years were screened for malnutrition every 90 days by CHWs using mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)
readings. CHWs used either SMS texts or paper forms to enter MUAC data. Reminder texts were sent at 15 days before follow-up was
needed. Chi-square tests assessed proportion of timely follow-up visits within 90 days between SMS and paper groups. Logistic regression analysis was conducted in a step-wise multivariate model. Post-hoc power calculations were conducted to verify strength of
associations.