Malaria has long been endemic to the country of Kenya a fact that s not helped by the population s low compliance with treatment guidelines. But because cell phone use happens to be about as widespread as malaria, some enterprising researchers decided to take advantage of this concurrence by using text-messaging to remind health workers to adhere to national malaria treatment guidelines. The results of this year-long study, just published in The Lancet, show that the approach is strikingly effective.
For their study, researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute randomly assigned health workers to receive daily text-message reminders or no reminder at all. The 119 health workers from across Kenya were, collectively, responsible for over 2,200 children who received the indicated treatment for malaria. Each day, they received a text message consisting of recommendations about pediatric malaria case-management, along with a motivational quotation. It turned out that such text-message reminders improved management of malaria by nearly 25 percent immediately after the intervention a rate that was even slightly higher six months later.
What s particularly exciting about the success of the intervention is its very low cost. The roughly one-cent price of each text message translates to about $39,000 when applied to the estimated 15,000 health workers in all rural Kenyan facilities.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross and Dr. Elizabeth Whelan are impressed with the efficacy of such a low-cost measure and, noting recent efforts in the U.S. to use text-messaging in the service of health care, imagine that the Kenyan study has promising implications for improving the treatment adherence for various diseases in the U.S. as well. Dr. Ross believes that this method might even be used to improve compliance with HIV therapy.