267360 A novel mobile phone application and online notification and reporting system for tuberculosis contact tracing in Botswana

Monday, October 29, 2012

Yoonhee P. Ha, MSc , Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
Ryan Littman-Quinn, BA , Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
Cynthia Antwi, PMP, PRINCE2 , Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
Gorewang Seropola, BSW , Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
Rebecca S. Green, BA , University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
Martha A. Tesfalul, BA , Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
Ari Ho-Foster, MSc , Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
Anthony A. Luberti, MD , Center for Biomedical Informatics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA
John H. Holmes, PhD, FACMI , Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA
Andrew P. Steenhoff, MBBCh , Botswana-UPenn Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
Carrie L. Kovarik, MD , Department of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Contact tracing plays a critical role in preventing the spread of tuberculosis in countries with a high prevalence of HIV. Botswana, with an HIV prevalence of 17.1% (2nd highest in the world) and tuberculosis notification rate of >500 cases per 100,000 (4th highest), serves as a case in point.

In Botswana, the Tuberculosis Contact Tracing Team makes home visits to pediatric and adult tuberculosis index cases identified at designated health centers. Using paper data collection forms, the team screens all household contacts and refers those with early symptoms to health care providers.

While the existing approach to contact tracing provides key information needed to prevent the spread of tuberculosis, it has numerous limitations. For example, data collected with paper forms are entered into a database by hand, leading to considerable delays in report generation, and home addresses are often recorded imprecisely, making it difficult to generate accurate case density maps. To address these limitations and others, we have developed a novel mobile phone application and online notification and reporting system that digitizes and automates much of the tuberculosis contact tracing process. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of this new approach and describe the pre-post quasi-experimental study design that is being used to compare the paper- and mobile phone application-based approaches. Specifically, we will compare the time required from start of data collection to notification and report generation, the quality of data collected and entered into the database, and the monetary costs of conducting tuberculosis contact tracing. We will also assess the acceptability and usability of the mobile phone application and online notification and reporting system to end users.

The findings of this study may be used to improve tuberculosis contact tracing in resource-limited settings and inform the development of mHealth applications for data acquisition and disease reporting.

Learning Areas:
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Protection of the public in relation to communicable diseases including prevention or control
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
By the end of the presentation, the participant will be able to (1) describe the limitations of the standard paper-based data collection form and notification and reporting method for tuberculosis contact tracing in Botswana, (2) identify the key benefits of conducting tuberculosis contact tracing with a mobile phone application and online notification and reporting system in Botswana, and (3) explain how the mobile phone application and online notification and reporting system will be compared to the standard paper-based data collection form and notification and reporting method for tuberculosis contact tracing in Botswana.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the lead author of this study and have previously conducted and presented on public health research from sub-Saharan Africa.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3395.0: Innovation in Technology: Data Methods and Applications Posters 1