Helping babies get timely well-child visits with community health workers and phone-based support
Official title: Leveraging community health workers and a responsive digital health system to improve rates and timeliness of child well visits in the first year of life
Funded at University of South Carolina at Columbia · NIH-11395729 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project uses community health workers, phone reminders, small incentives, and smart computer alerts to help caregivers bring babies under one year to on-time well-child visits.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of South Carolina at Columbia NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Columbia, United States) |
| Project start | September 18, 2022 |
| Project end | August 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2025 |
| Award (this year) | $173,024 |
| NIH project number | 3R01HD110844-04S1 |
| Project ID | NIH-11395729 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are caregivers of newborns and infants under 12 months living in the study communities (e.g., in Tanzania) who can be reached by mobile phone.
✕Less likely to help
Families without reliable phone access, living outside the study area, or with children older than one year are unlikely to get direct benefit from this program.
What this research studies
You would be invited to join a program that combines community health workers with mobile phone reminders and conditional financial incentives to support babies’ routine health visits in their first year. A machine learning tool will flag infants most likely to miss visits so health workers can provide extra outreach and help with appointments. The team will track whether children attend scheduled visits on time and receive recommended preventive care like vaccinations and growth checks. Most activities will occur in local communities in Tanzania and involve regular contact through phones and home visits.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If it works, more infants could get vaccines, growth checks, and other preventive care on schedule during their first year, improving early-life health.
How similar studies have gone: Earlier projects by this team showed that mobile reminders and small incentives can improve timely infant care, while applying machine learning to proactively target who needs outreach is a newer approach.
Where this research is happening
-
University of South Carolina at Columbia
Columbia, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Ostermann, Jan — University of South Carolina at Columbia
- Study coordinator: Ostermann, Jan
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.