The use and impact of mHealth by community health workers in developing and least developed countries: a systematic review

Purpose: In places without adequate health facilities, community health workers (CHWs) are employed by local governments to help families with health promotion activities. However, amidst the difficulties, mobile health applications (mHealth) are being increasingly developed in order to facilitate the work of the CHW. This work is a systematic review (SR) of the use of mHealth and the impact it has had so far in improving the health system and service delivery by the CHWs. Method: This SR was based on the 27 PRISMA recommendations. We used the PICOS tool to specify the components of this review (eligibility criteria, keywords, etc.) and the StArt software to organize and control the articles exported from digital databases (PubMed, SciELO, etc.) from 2009 to 2019. The studies accepted for reading in their entirety underwent an analysis of their risk of bias, through the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: The studies showed that mobile health intervention has a strong link with health care, mainly in the provision of community care services, maternal and child health care, sexual diseases, and infectious diseases, among others. This happens especially in rural or other areas of difficult access, such as countries in Africa, which occupies 61% of selected articles. However, it is believed that these applications have great potential and could help CHWs provide better disease prevention care. Conclusion: The use of mHealth by CHWs has become typical in many regions of the world and is believed to have the potential to improve health service delivery in hard-to-reach or resource-limited settings. © 2021, Sociedade Brasileira de Engenharia Biomedica.