Posted on behalf of guest contributor Marian Turner

The question of whether or not mobile phones pose a brain cancer risk is hotly debated around the world. But in Kenya, where about one in every 12 children dies before the age of five, health priorities are different. There, mobile phones are proving instrumental for helping to protect children from malaria.

A new study, published online today in The Lancet, shows that health workers who receive daily text messages on their mobile phone administer correct malaria treatment more often. Among a recent buzz around the use of mobile phones to aid healthcare and drug delivery in developing countries, this is the first study of the impact of texting on health worker performance.

Researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute–Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Nairobi studied around 120 health workers at more than 100 rural heath centers across Kenya who were collectively attending to some 2,300 children in need of treatment for malaria. At half of the health facilities, workers received two SMS messages per day, five days a week, for six months; the other health workers didn’t receive texts.

Here’s one of ten different messages the researchers sent out on weekly rotation, complete with instructional and motivational coaching: Check ALL sick children <5 years for any severe signs! Also check for fever, cough, diarrhea, pallor & any other problem. Quote: “Persistent work triumphs.”

Over the six months of the intervention, the rate at which health workers who received texts correctly managed treatment was 24% higher than management by those who didn’t receive the electronic reminders. And this elevated adherence was maintained at clinics where health workers had previously received texts even six months after the messages stopped coming.

Study co-author Bob Snow says he doesn’t fully understand just how the texting helped. But considering the prolonged impact of their mobile maneuver, he thinks that the texts’ content probably increased health workers understanding of recommended treatment practices. “In traditional training programs there has been little supervision or support once the workers were back in their home clinics,” Snow says. “It looks like the texts helped reinforce what they should be doing.”

The study authors note that widespread implementation of regular texting would be relatively straightforward — and cost-effective. In Kenya, 86% of the population has access to mobile phones, and rolling out the two-text-a-day program for six months to the 15,000 health workers across all rural health centers in Kenya would cost less than $3 per worker, according to the researchers’ calculations.