Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Mar 9, 2022
Date Accepted: Jun 16, 2022
Improving health knowledge through provision of free digital health education to rural communities in Iringa, Tanzania: a non-randomized intervention study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Community health education is one of the most effective measures to increase health literacy worldwide and can contribute to the achievement of specific targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG 3).
Objective:
The objective of this research was to assess the effect of a digital health education intervention on the uptake and retention of knowledge related to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and Taenia solium (neuro)cysticercosis/taeniosis (TSCT) in rural communities in Iringa, Tanzania.
Methods:
We conducted a non-randomised intervention study of participants aged 15-45, randomly selected from four villages in Iringa, rural Tanzania. The intervention consisted of three animated health videos and free access to community information spots (InfoSpots) with an integrated digital health education platform. Participants of the control group did not receive the intervention. The primary outcome was the difference in disease knowledge between the intervention and control groups at 12 months after baseline. Data were collected using an open-ended questionnaire pre- and post-intervention.
Results:
Between April and May 2019, 600 participants were recruited to the intervention (n=298) or the control (n=302) group. At baseline, no statistically significant difference in knowledge about the target diseases was observed. At 12 months post-intervention, knowledge about HIV/AIDS, TB and TSCT was 10.2% [95% CI 5.0, 15.4], 12.0% [95% CI 7.7, 16.2] and 31.5% [95% CI 26.8, 36.2] higher in the intervention group compared to the control group. In all four domains (transmission, symptoms, treatment and prevention), an increase in knowledge was observed for all three diseases, albeit to varying degrees. The participants who reported using the InfoSpots between three and 12 months, further increased their knowledge about the target diseases.
Conclusions:
Digital health education based on animated health videos and the use of free InfoSpots has significant potential to improve health knowledge, especially in rural areas of low-income and middle-income countries. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03808597; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03808597.
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