Text Messaging and Public Health Communication in Kenya

By Anant Shah
Published: March 8, 2007

Photo by Anant Shah

CDC and Kenya's Ministry of Health (MOH) are working to design automated systems that use short message service (SMS), the technical term for text messaging, for surveillance, outbreak updates and alerts, training, and delivering health messages to the public.

Though still in the early stages of development, SMS communication and surveillance holds promise. As it is refined, it may not only improve health communications across Kenya and East Africa but could also be a model to improve health communication worldwide using cheap, accessible technology. If CNN, ESPN, and American Idol can use such technology to communicate and analyze information, why can't public health?

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• Public Health Communication in Kenya: Why the mobile phone instead of the conventional computer and Internet?

Reprinted from: The Yale Journal of Public Health (Winter 2007).

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