Abstract
We conducted a systematic review of studies on mHealth and health care services delivery that were carried out within Africa. Our search process was through MEDLINE, and then on PubMed, we searched key terms based on various keywords: “Whatsapp, health, Africa, Text messages, health impact, Africa, mHealth tools, Africa”. This was done in December of 2018. Only English written articles from journals indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index were incorporated in this review. In line with our inclusion criteria, only a total of 19 out of 155 studies were relevant. Inferences from these studies showed that mHealth tools are speedy and quality means for health care delivery in Africa. We also found out that there is less usage of internet devices in Africa as suspected. There is a serious need for improvement in the use of other online based mHealth tools as it was found that the use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) has been the nearly the sole mHealth intervention utilized in Africa. This, it is believed would foster better wider intervention and implementation of quality health outcomes in Africa, and other low and middle-income regions of the world.
Highlights
Two quick submissions:“The African communications ‘revolution’ has been remarkable: by the end of 2013, mobile phone penetration rates were estimated to have reached 80%, and a recent World Bank report (2014) noted that more Africans have a mobile phone than have a toilet
Our search process was through MEDLINE, and on PubMed, we searched key terms based on various keywords: “Whatsapp, health, Africa, Text messages, health impact, Africa, mHealth tools, Africa”
There is a serious need for improvement in the use of other online based mHealth tools as it was found that the use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) has been the nearly the sole mHealth intervention utilized in Africa
Summary
Two quick submissions:“The African communications ‘revolution’ has been remarkable: by the end of 2013, mobile phone penetration rates were estimated to have reached 80%, and a recent World Bank report (2014) noted that more Africans have a mobile phone than have a toilet. Only 11% of phones in Sub-Saharan Africa currently have fast internet access (3G), this proportion is rising rapidly as costs fall and demand increases” (Hampshire et al, 2015:1). The couple of years are a key tipping point as 2G connections become a minority of the region’s total connections base. 3G will emerge as the dominant technology in the region over the few years, accounting for 60% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s connections by the end of 2025. GSMA Intelligence forecasts the first commercial 5G services to be launched in the region by 2021, with 5G connections accounting for 2.6% of the total connections base by 2025” (GSMA, 2018: 3). The above statement clearly places Sub-Saharan Africa and the globe in both a current and historical perspective
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