Project Title: Evaluation of mechanisms to improve mobile phone surveys
Project Description: Tanzania, like many countries around the globe, is experiencing a demographic and epidemiologic transition, where non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are increasing as leading causes of morbidity, disability and mortality. Effective prevention and control of NCDs depends on the reduction of exposure to NCD risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and harmful use of alcohol. Most efforts to obtain NCD risk factor information in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) rely on traditional... Tanzania, like many countries around the globe, is experiencing a demographic and epidemiologic transition, where non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are increasing as leading causes of morbidity, disability and mortality. Effective prevention and control of NCDs depends on the reduction of exposure to NCD risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and harmful use of alcohol. Most efforts to obtain NCD risk factor information in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) rely on traditional face-to-face/paper-and-pen methods, which demand tremendous time and financial resources, and as such, are conducted once very several years. Worldwide, there are over 5 billion mobile phone users. Over the last decade, there has been a proliferation of mobile phone subscriptions, particularly in LMICs. According to the World Bank, for the time period 2010 to 2014, mobile phone subscriptions in Tanzania increased from 38 to 52 subscriptions per 100 persons, an increase of over 36%. The increasing ubiquity of this technology, and its voice and messaging functionalities have potential to enable rapid and cost-effective collection of health information through the use of mobile phone surveys (MPS). Information from these surveys can be used to inform NCD prevention and control strategies. However, limited scientific evidence exist son factors that affect MPS response, completion, and attrition rates and corresponding mechanisms to improve them. Specific tasks and outcomes. IHI will evaluate the mechanism to improve MPS in data collection, whose target population will cover any people of 18years and above in Tanzania. The participants will be obtained by random digit dialing (RDD) and will be expected to respond to questions either through IVR or CATI; The MPS Initiative will answer key questions on how to improve interactive voice response (IVR) survey delivery and how mobile phone survey modalities (IVR vs. Computer Assisted Telephone Interview {CATI}) differ on key survey metrics such as response, completion and attrition rates. With IVR surveys, respondents interact with a pre-programmed database which contains questions and series of pre-set answers to the questions- linked to a specific numeric key, or numeric response on a touch-tone phone keypad (e.g. “Press 1 for Yes”). CATI surveys employ call centres where human interviews follow a script provided by a software program to survey participants. The main objectives of this project are to adapt the use of MPS for NCD risk factor surveys and to asses the feasibility, quality and validity of NCD mobile phone surveys. Through a formative phase and a set of six rapid, sub-studies testing the effects of varying incentives, survey introductions, and sampling frame, the study seeks to accomplish the following 5specific objectives; 1.) Asses the usability and community member perceptions and willingness to participate in an IVR survey. 2). Evaluate the impact of incentives on response, completion and refusal rates of an IVR-administrated NCD risk factor survey. 3). Asses the effect of different IVR survey introduction modalities on response, completion, and refusal rates of an IVR- administered NCD risk factor survey. 4). Examine the difference in survey metrics, such as representatives, completeness, and response rate between random digit dialing (RDD) approaches and existing sources e.g, Mobile Network Operators (MNO). 5). Evaluate the difference in survey metrics between an IVR survey and a computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). The results from the study will help inform future design and implementation of mobile phone surveys in LMICs.
Principal Investigator : Honorati Masanja
Department Name : HSIEP
Time frame: (2016-08-01) - (2021-03-31)
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) (Normal)
External Collaborating Partners
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