The effect of SMS reminders on health screening uptake

A randomized experiment in Indonesia

authored by

Maja E. Marcus, Anna Reuter, Lisa Rogge, Sebastian Vollmer

Abstract

As cardiovascular diseases (CVD) become the leading cause of death in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), this raises new challenges for health systems. Regular screening is a key measure to manage CVD risk, but the uptake of such services remains low. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in Indonesia to assess whether personalized and targeted text messages increase the usage of public screening services for diabetes and hypertension in the at-risk population. Our intervention increased screening uptake by 6.6 percentage points. We show that text messages can be effective in the context of a relatively new disease burden in LMICs, where population responses may still be shaped by low salience and missing screening routines.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Macroeconomics

External Organisation(s)

University of Göttingen
Harvard University
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Heidelberg University
Federal Institute for Population Research (BIB)
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Type

Article

Journal

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Volume

227

No. of pages

28

ISSN

0167-2681

Publication date

11.2024

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Economics and Econometrics, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106715 (Access: Open)