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Developing Low-Cost Universal Malnutrition Screening for Low Income Countries - the MAMMS Trial

NCT03967015 · Status: UNKNOWN · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 1200

Last updated 2020-01-13

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Acute malnutrition affects 52 million children, costs $2.1 trillion globally, and contributes to 45% of deaths among children under five years of age. Affordable home-based treatments can prevent many of these deaths, with success rates over 97.5% if malnutrition is identified early. If identified late, treatment failure rates increase to 16%. Malnutrition programs currently rely on community health volunteers to screen children, which can lead to high costs, low screening coverage, and late identification. Mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) is the preferred community malnutrition screening tool. Training mothers to use MUAC tapes to monitor their child's nutritional status through a short message service (SMS) mobile health system could increase screening coverage and facilitate rapid engagement with nutritional services where necessary. The investigators propose to test the "Maternal Administered Malnutrition Monitoring System" (MAMMS) in a randomized controlled trial in Kenya. Participants will be taught to measure their child's MUAC at 6 or 9-month immunization visits and during 6-month follow up the participants will receive a weekly SMS prompting them to measure and send their child's MUAC to a computer system which will alert a health worker when a child with malnutrition is identified. This scalable system could enable nutrition programs to optimize screening coverage, leading to early identification of malnutrition, lower costs and a reduction in under-five mortality.

Conditions

  • Child Malnutrition

Interventions

OTHER

Maternal Administered Malnutrition Monitoring System (MAMMS)

Participants randomized to the MAMMS arm will be provided with two insertion MUAC tapes that are UNICEF color coded and numbered to 1 mm gradations to take home with them. Participants will receive a weekly SMS asking them to measure and send their child's MUAC via SMS. SMS messages will provide actionable reminders to measure and send the child's MUAC. Both the SMS sent to the participant and SMS responses sent by the participant to the MAMMS system will be free of charge. Study staff will screen all SMS measurements returned to the MUAC system for identification of malnutrition.

Sponsors & Collaborators

Principal Investigators

  • Christine J McGrath, PhD, MPH · University of Washington

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
6 Months
Max Age
12 Months
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-08-02
Primary Completion
2021-08-02
Completion
2022-02-03

Countries

  • Kenya

Study Locations

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Entities

Companies

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03967015 on ClinicalTrials.gov