NCT03406221

Use of Mobile Technology by Community-Based Health Workers to Promote Maternal and Child Health in Bihar, India

Use of Mobile Technology to Improve the Performance of Community-Based Health Workers in Promoting Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Nutrition Behaviors in Bihar, India: A Cluster Randomized Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 3,112 (actual)
• Sponsor: Stanford University · Academic / Other
• Sex: Female
• Age: 15 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study is designed to evaluate the impact of use of mobile technology by community-based health workers on health-promoting behaviors among women related to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition in Bihar, India. The intervention was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and in collaboration with CARE was implemented from 2012 to 2014. Health sub-centers in the catchment areas of four blocks (sub-districts) of the district of Saharsa were randomly assigned to treatment or control arms (35 sub-centers were assigned to each). Data were collected in the Intervention and Control areas from mothers of infants 0-12 months at baseline and at 2-year follow-up, to assess the intervention's effects on quality and quantity of FLW home visits, postnatal health behaviors, and among older infants/toddlers, complementary feeding and vaccination. Difference in difference analyses were used to assess outcome effects in this quasi experimental study. The ICT-CCS intervention was implemented in areas where the BMGF-funded Ananya program (official title: Bihar Family Health Initiative) was also being implemented. Thus, the impact is of the \[ICT-CCS intervention + Ananya\] versus \[Ananya alone\]. The Ananya program was developed and implemented via a partnership of BMGF, CARE, and the Government of Bihar. The ultimate purpose of Ananya was to reduce maternal, newborn, and child mortality; fertility; and child undernutrition in Bihar, India. Ananya involved multi-level interventions designed to build front line health worker (FLW) capacities and reach to communities and households, as well as to strengthen public health facilities and quality of care to improve maternal and neonatal care and health behaviors, and thus survival. It was implemented from 2012 to 2014. Eight focal districts in western and central Bihar received Ananya, while 30 districts did not.

Conditions

• Health
• Pregnancy
• Infant
• Nutrition
• Child

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Information Communication Technology Continuum of Care Service	Mobile phones were made available to community health workers in the intervention arms that integrated a comprehensive set of functions to assist them in their duties, including registration and tracking of beneficiaries, automated scheduling of home visits, provision of health information through videos, guided protocols for conducting home visits through checklists, a feature to track child immunizations, and supervisory tools.
OTHER	Control Condition	Standard of care

Timeline

• Start date: 2012-01-01
• Primary completion: 2014-08-31
• Completion: 2014-08-31
• First posted: 2018-01-23
• Last updated: 2023-04-19