Study Shows mHealth Service for Moms is Beneficial
Study Shows mHealth Service for Moms is Beneficial
California State University year-long study demonstrates text4baby’s effectiveness
WASHINGTON, DC (May 6, 2013) – The leading mobile health service in the nation, text4baby, was found to significantly benefit participants. Results from a year-long evaluation provide clear evidence of the positive impact text4baby has on users.
Text4baby is a proven, free mobile health information service of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) that provides pregnant women and new moms with critical health and safety information via text message. The content includes messages about immunization, nutrition, birth defect prevention, safe sleep, and more. Text4baby was developed in partnership with Founding Sponsor Johnson & Johnson and founding partners Voxiva, CTIA - The Wireless Foundation, and Grey Healthcare Group (a WPP company).
A survey developed by researchers from the National Latino Research Center (NLRC) at California State University San Marcos and the University of California San Diego, with support from the Alliance Healthcare Foundation, was administered to 631 unique text4baby users in San Diego. Overall, evaluation findings indicate that text4baby is increasing users’ health knowledge, facilitating interaction with health providers, reminding them of their appointments and immunizations, and improving access to health services. Specifically:
- 65% reported that text4baby helped them remember an appointment or immunization.
- 74% reported that text4baby messages informed them of medical warning signs they did not know.
- 67% reported talking to their doctor about a topic they read about in a text4baby message.
- 40% reported that they called a service or phone number they received from a text4baby message.
- 50% of participants without health insurance reported calling a service number; and they were more likely to call a service number than those with insurance.
Furthermore, the report states “that text4baby is reaching its target audience, which includes underrepresented community residents from minority groups and lower socioeconomic statuses.”
“The text4baby service is a leading innovation in maternal and infant health promotion and the study results show compelling evidence for its capability to reach underserved populations and deliver valuable and relevant information,” said Arcela Nunez Alvarez, PhD interim Director at the National Latino Research Center.
“The evaluation findings affirm that text4baby is improving mother’s knowledge and behaviors, both of which can lead to healthy outcomes for mom and baby,” said Nancy Sasaki, Executive Director at the Alliance Healthcare Foundation.
This research study reinforces findings from a recently released randomized evaluation by George Washington University which found text4baby mothers were “nearly three times more likely to believe that they were prepared to be new mothers compared to those in the no exposure control group.”
“The research on text4baby demonstrates that this free service is an effective tool to support healthy outcomes for mothers and babies. Armed with this information, our goal is to engage even more individuals in our network of over 900 partners and to sign up even more women for these valuable free health messages,” said Sarah Ingersoll, text4baby director at the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition.
A copy of the executive summary of the San Diego text4baby evaluation report can be found here.
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