NCT03180138

Enhancing Health Care Access With Cellular Technology

Enhancing Health Care Access With Cellular Technology: Networked and Mobile Technologies to Improve Uptake and Coverage of Vaccinations

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 608 (actual)
• Sponsor: Johns Hopkins University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 24 Months
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

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.

Detailed description

A web-based, biometric-linked vaccination record, cell-phone reminder and compliance-linked incentive software platform to provide robust and universal access of vaccinations. The investigators will implement this platform in a low-resource settings with the following features: a) Web-based for robust and universal access. b) Biometric-linked for positive identification. c) Digital storage and reporting for transparent view of program operations. d) Global Positioning System (GPS)-linked, allowing rapid assessment of vaccination status of communities. e) Increasing vaccination uptake and coverage by automated text message reminders and compliance-linked incentives.

Conditions

• Vaccination

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
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.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-07-11
• Primary completion: 2017-07-20
• Completion: 2017-07-20
• First posted: 2017-06-08
• Last updated: 2018-06-25
• Results posted: 2018-06-25