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Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial
BACKGROUND: Vaccination is a cost-effective strategy for reducing morbidity and mortality among children under 5 years old. To be fully protected from diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio, children must receive all recommended vaccinations in a timely manner. In many count...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611039/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31272487 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3430-4 |
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author | Ostermann, Jan Vasudevan, Lavanya Baumgartner, Joy Noel Ngadaya, Esther Mfinanga, Sayoki Godfrey |
author_facet | Ostermann, Jan Vasudevan, Lavanya Baumgartner, Joy Noel Ngadaya, Esther Mfinanga, Sayoki Godfrey |
author_sort | Ostermann, Jan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Vaccination is a cost-effective strategy for reducing morbidity and mortality among children under 5 years old. To be fully protected from diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio, children must receive all recommended vaccinations in a timely manner. In many countries, including Tanzania, high overall vaccination rates mask substantial regional variation in vaccination coverage and low rates of vaccination timeliness. This study evaluates the efficacy of mobile phone-based (mHealth) reminders and incentives for improving vaccination timeliness in the first year of life. METHODS: The study, conducted in Mtwara Region in Tanzania, includes 400 late-stage pregnant women enrolled from rural and urban health facilities and surrounding communities. The primary outcome is timeliness of vaccinations among their children at 6, 10, and 14 weeks after birth. Timeliness is defined as vaccination receipt within 28 days after the vaccination due date. The quasi-randomized controlled trial includes three arms: (1) standard of care (no reminders or incentives), (2) mobile phone-based reminders, and (3) mobile phone-based reminders and incentives in the form of conditional financial transfers. Assignment into study arms is based on scheduled vaccination dates. Reminder messages are sent to arms 2 and 3 participants via mobile phones 1 week and 1 day prior to each scheduled vaccination. For arm 3 participants, reminder messages offer an incentive that is provided in the form of a mobile phone airtime recharge voucher code for each timely vaccination. Vaccination dates are recorded via participant contact with an mHealth system, phone calls with mothers, and a review of government-issued vaccination cards during an end-line survey. Random effects logistic regression models will be used to estimate the effects of reminders and incentives on the timeliness of vaccinations. DISCUSSION: The results will inform implementation science research on the effectiveness of reminders and incentives as a means of improving vaccination timeliness. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03252288. Registered on 17 August 2017 (retrospectively registered). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13063-019-3430-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6611039 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66110392019-07-16 Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial Ostermann, Jan Vasudevan, Lavanya Baumgartner, Joy Noel Ngadaya, Esther Mfinanga, Sayoki Godfrey Trials Study Protocol BACKGROUND: Vaccination is a cost-effective strategy for reducing morbidity and mortality among children under 5 years old. To be fully protected from diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio, children must receive all recommended vaccinations in a timely manner. In many countries, including Tanzania, high overall vaccination rates mask substantial regional variation in vaccination coverage and low rates of vaccination timeliness. This study evaluates the efficacy of mobile phone-based (mHealth) reminders and incentives for improving vaccination timeliness in the first year of life. METHODS: The study, conducted in Mtwara Region in Tanzania, includes 400 late-stage pregnant women enrolled from rural and urban health facilities and surrounding communities. The primary outcome is timeliness of vaccinations among their children at 6, 10, and 14 weeks after birth. Timeliness is defined as vaccination receipt within 28 days after the vaccination due date. The quasi-randomized controlled trial includes three arms: (1) standard of care (no reminders or incentives), (2) mobile phone-based reminders, and (3) mobile phone-based reminders and incentives in the form of conditional financial transfers. Assignment into study arms is based on scheduled vaccination dates. Reminder messages are sent to arms 2 and 3 participants via mobile phones 1 week and 1 day prior to each scheduled vaccination. For arm 3 participants, reminder messages offer an incentive that is provided in the form of a mobile phone airtime recharge voucher code for each timely vaccination. Vaccination dates are recorded via participant contact with an mHealth system, phone calls with mothers, and a review of government-issued vaccination cards during an end-line survey. Random effects logistic regression models will be used to estimate the effects of reminders and incentives on the timeliness of vaccinations. DISCUSSION: The results will inform implementation science research on the effectiveness of reminders and incentives as a means of improving vaccination timeliness. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03252288. Registered on 17 August 2017 (retrospectively registered). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13063-019-3430-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-07-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6611039/ /pubmed/31272487 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3430-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Study Protocol Ostermann, Jan Vasudevan, Lavanya Baumgartner, Joy Noel Ngadaya, Esther Mfinanga, Sayoki Godfrey Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title | Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title_full | Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title_fullStr | Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title_full_unstemmed | Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title_short | Do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in Tanzania? Study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
title_sort | do mobile phone-based reminders and conditional financial transfers improve the timeliness of childhood vaccinations in tanzania? study protocol for a quasi-randomized controlled trial |
topic | Study Protocol |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611039/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31272487 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3430-4 |
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