Digital Health Promotion in Iringa, Tanzania

Summary

Increased health education has the potential to facilitate better use of health care services and to promote early treatment, thus it can strengthen the health care system, and ultimately reduce morbidity and mortality. In this study, we will develop and test the effect of digital health messages related to HIV, Tuberculosis (TB) and Taenia solium cysticercosis/taeniosis (TSCT) (the intervention diseases) in Migoli and Izazi (the intervention villages), in Iringa, Tanzania (TZ).

The intervention is planned as follows: A digital platform, providing the intervention villages with digital health messages related to the above-mentioned diseases, will be implemented in TZ in 2019. The platform will be accessible free of charge, through own devices and tablets based in the local Wi-Fi spots in the villages.

In the first part of this project, the doctoral research fellow will participate in developing the digital health messages, together with experts from the medical and teaching environments in Tanzania, Norway, Germany and USA.

The second part of the PhD-project consists of a cluster non-randomised controlled trial and semi-structured interviews in Tanzania. The digital health messages will be physically shown to the participants in the intervention group. The study is planned to investigate the knowledge related to the intervention diseases, before the intervention, immediately after exposure to the intervention, and at follow-up points throughout one year, after the intervention has been implemented. Semi-structured interviews with clients (users of the intervention) from each of the intervention villages are included, to explore the perception and reception of the intervention.

The baseline study and the immediate after survey will take place in Tanzania in Q1 2019, while the other follow-up studies and interviews (3, 6 and 12 months after baseline) will be undertaken throughout one year.

Conditions

• HIV Infections
• Tuberculosis
• Cysticercosis
• Tapeworm Pork

Interventions

OTHER

Digital health promotion intervention

Digital health promition related to HIV, Tuberculosis and TSCT in a digital format.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute for Medical Research, Tanzania

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Sokoine University of Agriculture

  collaborator OTHER

• Technical University of Munich

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Oslo

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Andrea S Winkler, M, PhdD · University of Oslo

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

15 Years

Max Age

70 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-04-01

Primary Completion

2020-06-01

Completion

2020-06-01

Countries

• Tanzania

Study Locations