Characteristics of At-Scale mHealth Projects in the Global South: A Case Study Approach

Abstract

Mobile health (mHealth) has emerged as a popular practice due to the increasing penetration of mobile phones in low-resource environments. However, most of the data come from pilot studies, where the findings are drawn mostly from a single media use interface and short-term based, leaving us with a limited understanding about the long-term use and impact of these services. As the more programs and countries aim to establish scaled, sustainable mhealth programs, it is therefore important to study mHealth programs in more depth to understand what makes them successful. The goal of this study is to evaluate five mHealth projects at different levels of scale in five different countries to understand in what ways the scaled projects are similar or different than those that did not scale.

Keywords: mhealth, maternal health, case study