Enhancing Health Care Access With Cellular Technology

Summary

Despite the impressive economic progress in developing countries, significant proportion of young children and pregnant women living in low-resource settings remain inadequately immunized. Progressive decline in immunizations are in large part attributable to poor follow-up and compliance. National and international pediatric bodies, recommend a time sensitive schedule for childhood immunizations, boosting immunity with each subsequent cycle, leading to adequate levels of immune protection. Due to inadequate protective immunity, resulting from poor vaccination compliance, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are rampant, making childhood mortality in this group among the highest in the world. Major challenges of vaccination programs include maintaining / tracking records, linked to positive identification of individual children, and strategies to improve follow-up and compliance. Novel cellular technology based approaches targeting behavior modifications can therefore significantly impact health outcomes in these communities. In this proposal, the investigators will evaluate a novel software platform, utilizing biometric identification of subjects, paired with cell-phone reminders and compliance-linked incentives to improve uptake and coverage of primary vaccinations in young children and pregnant women.

Conditions

• Vaccination

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Reminders alone

Automated reminders (text and /or voice in local language) for upcoming vaccination visit(s) will be provided via cell-phone to the subject (mother / caregiver) or pregnant woman.

BEHAVIORAL

Compliance-linked incentives

Automated compliance-linked incentives (as cell-phone minutes) will be provided via cell-phone to the subject (mother / caregiver) or pregnant woman.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)

  collaborator NIH

• Ministry of Science and Technology, India

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Bal Umang Drishya Sanstha (BUDS), India

  collaborator OTHER

• Royal Datamatics Pvt. Ltd. (RDPL), India

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• St. Louis University

  collaborator OTHER

• Johns Hopkins University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sanjay K Jain, MD · Johns Hopkins University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Max Age

24 Months

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-07-11

Primary Completion

2017-07-20

Completion

2017-07-20