Health on the Move: Can Mobile Phones Save Lives?

This policy briefi ng focuses on how one of the greatest engines of innovation in the 21st century – the mobile phone – offers important opportunities for saving lives. The explosive growth of mobile telephony over the past decade has generated exciting new thinking around its potential to improve the uptake of health services and healthy behaviours. That potential is increasingly being transformed into practice, with encouraging results. This policy briefi ng draws on BBC Media Action’s direct experience in using mobile phones to improve health education in one of the poorest states of India. Bihar has among the highest rates of maternal and child mortality in
the country, but also one of the most rapidly expanding mobile markets. The briefi ng shows how, in a region where mobile phones outnumber basic goods such as water taps and toilets, the former have emerged as a simple, high-impact solution for improving the survival chances of mothers and babies.