<p>The ubiquitous mobile phone can double up as a dispenser of useful medical advice for millions of Indians suffering from diabetes.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Sending text messages twice in a week to one million Indians advising them to exercise, have less fat, and eat more fruits and vegetables actually helped reduce the risk factors for diabetes among Indians, found a team of researchers, who experimented with mobile phones to spread public health advices.<br /><br />This is the first scientific study to demonstrate the power and reach of the mobile phones to effect a change in the diabetes risk behaviour in India.<br /><br />India tops the world with an estimated 66 million diabetic patients. Close to a million die each year and several millions are prone to it. India's diabetes prevalence is four times higher than among Caucasians in the United States.<br /><br />When a team of researchers from the US and India set out to check if mobile phone can be used as a health promotion intervention delivery channel, India with its billion plus connections was picked up as the test case.<br /><br />The study has now found that almost 40% more people improved their health behaviours as a result of the text messages they received twice in a week, compared to those who did not receive those messages.<br /><br />“This shows the potential for even the most basic of mobile phones to be used as a viable tool to deliver public health messages on a large scale across a diverse population. Just a basic mobile phone can make an impact,” said lead scientist Angela Fidler Pfammatter, research assistant professor in preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.<br /><br />“It would make sense to undertake a controlled study measuring exact cost and detailing the health outcomes as the next step prior to scaling up this strategy,” Pfammatter told DH.<br /><br />The researchers analysed the responses from 982 people who were randomly selected from the recipients of a health promotion campaign launched by a mobile company in 2012-13.<br />Though a set of 56 messages in 12 Indian languages were sent to a million Indians, 982 adult individuals were picked as representative sample up for the analysis.<br /><br />The recipients were compared against a control population of 943 Indians who did not get those messages. Every person was followed for six months to find out the behavioural changes, if any.<br /><br />The study found while people in both the experimental and control group improved their health behaviours over six months, the experimental group improved significantly more.</p>
<p>The ubiquitous mobile phone can double up as a dispenser of useful medical advice for millions of Indians suffering from diabetes.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Sending text messages twice in a week to one million Indians advising them to exercise, have less fat, and eat more fruits and vegetables actually helped reduce the risk factors for diabetes among Indians, found a team of researchers, who experimented with mobile phones to spread public health advices.<br /><br />This is the first scientific study to demonstrate the power and reach of the mobile phones to effect a change in the diabetes risk behaviour in India.<br /><br />India tops the world with an estimated 66 million diabetic patients. Close to a million die each year and several millions are prone to it. India's diabetes prevalence is four times higher than among Caucasians in the United States.<br /><br />When a team of researchers from the US and India set out to check if mobile phone can be used as a health promotion intervention delivery channel, India with its billion plus connections was picked up as the test case.<br /><br />The study has now found that almost 40% more people improved their health behaviours as a result of the text messages they received twice in a week, compared to those who did not receive those messages.<br /><br />“This shows the potential for even the most basic of mobile phones to be used as a viable tool to deliver public health messages on a large scale across a diverse population. Just a basic mobile phone can make an impact,” said lead scientist Angela Fidler Pfammatter, research assistant professor in preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.<br /><br />“It would make sense to undertake a controlled study measuring exact cost and detailing the health outcomes as the next step prior to scaling up this strategy,” Pfammatter told DH.<br /><br />The researchers analysed the responses from 982 people who were randomly selected from the recipients of a health promotion campaign launched by a mobile company in 2012-13.<br />Though a set of 56 messages in 12 Indian languages were sent to a million Indians, 982 adult individuals were picked as representative sample up for the analysis.<br /><br />The recipients were compared against a control population of 943 Indians who did not get those messages. Every person was followed for six months to find out the behavioural changes, if any.<br /><br />The study found while people in both the experimental and control group improved their health behaviours over six months, the experimental group improved significantly more.</p>
