Abstract
Mobile phone penetration rates have reached 63% in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and are projected to pass 70% by 2013. In SSA, millions of people who never used traditional landlines now use mobile phones on a regular basis. Mobile health, or mHealth, is the utilization of short messaging service (SMS), wireless data transmission, voice calling, and smartphone applications to transmit health-related information or direct care. This systematic review analyzes and summarizes key articles from the current body of peer-reviewed literature on PubMed on the topic of mHealth in SSA. Studies included in the review demonstrate that mHealth can improve and reduce the cost of patient monitoring, medication adherence, and healthcare worker communication, especially in rural areas. mHealth has also shown initial promise in emergency and disaster response, helping standardize, store, analyze, and share patient information. Challenges for mHealth implementation in SSA include operating costs, knowledge, infrastructure, and policy among many others. Further studies of the effectiveness of mHealth interventions are being hindered by similar factors as well as a lack of standardization in study design. Overall, the current evidence is not strong enough to warrant large-scale implementation of existing mHealth interventions in SSA, but rapid progress of both infrastructure and mHealth-related research in the region could justify scale-up of the most promising programs in the near future.
Highlights
This review aims to provide a summary of key articles, published on or before March 16, 2013, from the peer-reviewed scientific literature describing current progress on Mobile health (mHealth) initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to explore potential future applications of mHealth in the region
Areas of mHealth where the most promise has been shown to date are in medication adherence and healthcare worker communication though the evidence is not yet sufficient to warrant large-scale investment and policy change
Challenges resulting from lack of cultural familiarity with wireless technology are disappearing with the introduction of cell phone access in even the most remote areas of SSA
Summary
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the penetration of cell phones is estimated to be 63% in 2013 and projected to pass 70% by 2015 [2]. Hundreds of millions of people in SSA who never gained access to traditional landlines for telecommunication use mobile phones on a regular basis [3]. Wireless technology is less expensive and more readily available than wired technology [4]. This technology has unique potential to reach large numbers of people living in resource-limited or remote locations
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