Levine, Fink); University of Basel (
Levine, Fink); Innovations for Poverty Action (
Salifu, Mohammed)
"...supports existing evidence that regular outreach to encourage and support vaccination can improve immunization coverage in low-resource settings, and may be especially effective when combined with household incentives."
Timeliness of childhood vaccines remains a challenge in many settings. At the same time, access to mobile phones and mobile data network coverage is expanding rapidly. Mobile phone-based public health (mHealth) strategies have the potential: to reach difficult-to-access populations with information and messaging; to support communication, coordination, tracking, and supervision of vaccination programmes; and to improve awareness, demand for, and utilisation of vaccine services. Financial incentives have also demonstrated impact in facilitating individual behaviour change in public health programmes. This study assessed if mobile-phone-based reminders and incentives for health workers and caregivers could increase timely neonatal vaccination in rural Karaga District in Ghana's Northern Region.