Mobile health for cancer in low to middle income countries: priorities for research and development: mHealth for cancer in low income countries
Open accessAbstract
Many current global health opportunities have less to do with new biomedical knowledge than with the coordination and delivery of care. While basic research remains vital, the growing cancer epidemic in countries of low and middle income warrants urgent action - focusing on both research and service delivery innovation. Mobile technology can reduce costs, improve access to health services, and strengthen health systems to meet the interrelated challenges of cancer and other noncommunicable diseases. Experience has shown that even very poor and remote communities that only have basic primary health care can benefit from mobile health (or 'mHealth') interventions. We argue that cancer researchers and practitioners have an opportunity to leverage mHealth technologies that have successfully targeted other health conditions, rather than reinventing these tools. We call for particular attention to human centred design approaches for adapting existing technologies to suit distinctive aspects of cancer care and to align delivery with local context - and we make a number of recommendations for integrating mHealth delivery research with the work of designers, engineers and implementers in large-scale delivery programmes.
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Participating patients or providers usually required only a few days of training on how to use the mobile technology and the consultation procedures.
“Participating patients or providers usually required only a few days of training on how to use the mobile technology (such as the mobile phone and its application software) and the consultation procedures [41, 43, 46–48, 50, 55].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
In 12 included studies, mHealth interventions essentially consisted of mobile phone-based consultations between two healthcare providers, where a specialized provider could be reached by another provider, indirectly improving patient access to specialized care.
“In 12 studies, mHealth interventions essentially consisted of mobile phone-based consultations between two healthcare providers, where a specialized provider could be reached by another provider, thus indirectly improving patient access to specialized care [36, 38–43, 45, 47–49, 52].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
Almost all included studies highlighted that mHealth interventions facilitate access to previously unavailable services.
“In fact, almost all included studies highlighted this characteristic feature of mHealth interventions [20, 36–51].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
For patients, the most important predisposing characteristic associated with the perception that an mHealth intervention was more useful than an alternative was patients' cultural and social acceptance of the mobile technology, involving familiarity with the technology in the community and absence of negative myths.
“For patients, the most important predisposing characteristic associated with the perception that a mHealth intervention was more useful than an alternative was the patients’ cultural and social acceptance of the mobile technology, which involved familiarity with the technology in the community and absence of negative myths [38, 40, 41, 46, 53, 55].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
Over-burdening workload contributed to specialized providers' perceived usefulness of mHealth.
“Also for (specialized) providers, several need factors contributed to the perceived usefulness of the intervention, including, for example, an over-burdening workload [20, 36, 38–41, 43, 45, 47, 50] and a lack of adequate referral and transport systems [38, 46, 47].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
First-contact providers reported that mHealth could contribute to overcoming barriers to accessing supervision.
“Furthermore, (first-contact) providers reported that they needed support in order to follow guidelines [50, 54, 55] and that mHealth could contribute to overcoming barriers to accessing supervision [37, 40–42, 47, 51].”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
Using technologies from basic SMS to smartphones, built-in camera, and battery-saving apps was associated with healthcare providers' perception that mHealth was easy to use.
“The same enabling resources — easy portability and operability [36, 39], using technologies from basic SMS to smartphones, built-in camera, and battery-saving apps [41, 43, 45, 52] — were also found to be associated with the perception among healthcare providers that mHealth was easy to use.”
From A realist review of mobile phone-based health interventions for non-communicable disease management in sub-Saharan Africa (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
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References 32 · Cited by 42
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Barrington, J. et al., 2010. SMS for Life: a pilot project to improveanti-malarial drug supply management in ruralTanzania using standard technology. Malaria Journal, 9(1), p.298.
- Farmer, P. et al., 2010. Health Policy. The Lancet, 376(9747), pp.1186-1193.
- Pati, S. et al., 2014. Care pathways, care experiences and barriers to treatment seeking in cancer : An exploratory study in Odisha, India. In press.
- Authors
- Holeman, I., Evans, J., Kane, D., Grant, L., Pagliari, C., & Weller, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Medic Mobile; San Francisco California USA
- Corresponding author
- Holeman, I.
- Venue
- European Journal of Cancer Care
- Publisher
- Hindawi Limited
- Published
- 2014-10-17
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 750-756
- ISSN
- 0961-5423 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2148212728
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 9.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- Locations
- European Journal of Cancer Care (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Department for International Development
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › ICT in Developing Communities
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile Learning in Education
- Keywords
- mobile health, cancer care, low- and middle-income countries, human-centered design, non-communicable diseases, health system strengthening, health care access, research priorities, technology adaptation
- MeSH terms
- Delivery of Health Care, Developing Countries, Humans, Neoplasms, Outcome Assessment, Health Care, Telemedicine, Rural Health Services
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