The Necessity of Mobile Phone Technologies for Public Health Surveillance in Benin

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted in March 2016 to assess the need of mobile phone technologies for health surveillance and interventions in Benin. Questionnaires were administered to 130 individuals comprising 25 medical professionals, 33 veterinarians, and 72 respondents from the public. All respondents possess cell phones and 75%, 84%, and 100% of the public, medical professionals, and veterinarians, respectively, generally use them for medical purposes. 75% of respondents including 68% of medics, 84.8% of veterinarians, and 72.2% of the public acknowledged that the current surveillance systems are ineffective and do not capture and share real-time information. More than 92% of the all respondents confirmed that mobile phones have the potential to improve health surveillance in the country. All respondents reported adhering to a nascent project of mobile phone-based health surveillance and confirmed that there is no existing similar approach in the country. The most preferred methods by all respondents for effective implementation of such platform are phone calls (96.92%) followed by SMS (49.23%) and smart phone digital forms (41.53%). This study revealed urgent needs of mobile phone technologies for health surveillance and interventions in Benin for real-time surveillance and efficient disease prevention.

Lessening barriers to healthcare in rural Ghana: providers and users’ perspectives on the role of mHealth technology. A qualitative exploration

“…The study observed low knowledge and awareness of mHealth among the healthcare users. This poor knowledge of mHealth has been reported previously by other studies elsewhere [4,14,[23][24][25]. By implication, rural healthcare users use mobile phones for many purposes but may not be aware of the use of the technology for medical purpose.…”

“…The findings of the current study exhibit the practicability of using mobile phones to access health care at the rural areas of Ghana and other rural African communities. In rural societies with restricted accessibility to health services, mHealth connectedness could influence life and death resolutions in emergency circumstances [11,24,25]. Globally, mHealth works best when the users and providers are aware and informed about the intervention.…”

“…Pertaining to users' age, the study found that mainstream of the participants was within the age category of 31-50 years. Most of the users were self-employed (24) and were engaged in informal economic ventures like conventional peasant farming, artisanal works, and petty trading, which was mirrored in the overall moderately low-income levels, and with the majority receiving monthly income less than GH¢250 ($56.95). Conversely, providers who partook in the study were largely females (10), with only 5 males.…”

Technologies for capturing and analysing animal health data in near real time

“…EMA has been successfully piloted in Uganda since 2013 with plans to expand its use across the country for tracking animal diseases, as well as additional pilot projects planned in other countries (38). Regardless of the platform, mobile apps have been well received when applied in animal health to remote data collection and have been shown to improve the timeliness of this collection as compared with paper-based questionnaires (2,8,27,32,39). While the current process for mobile app development is device-specific (i.e.…”

“…With the increasing availability of mHealth technologies, the decision regarding the most appropriate platform(s) for data collection should be guided by the objectives and data to be collected, as well as factors such as accessibility and cost (28,39). Appropriate training is essential to ensure that users are familiar with the mobile technology and its use in data collection.…”