ReviewJMIR mHealth and uHealth2018
Challenges and Potential Opportunities of Mobile Phone Call Detail Records in Health Research: Review.
Review in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Access to Essential Services: A Critical Factor for Predicting Recovery and Quantifying Resilience.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2026Article
- The limitations of mobile phone data for measuring movement patterns of populations at risk of malaria.Malaria journal · 2025Observational
- The Effect of Gun-Free School Zones on Crimes Committed with a Firearm in Saint Louis, Missouri.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2023Article
- Pre-Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields and Induction of Radioadaptive Response in Rats Irradiated with High Doses of X-Rays.Journal of biomedical physics & engineering · 2022Article
- Ethical, Legal, and Sociocultural Issues in the Use of Mobile Technologies and Call Detail Records Data for Public Health in the East African Region: Scoping Review.Interactive journal of medical research · 2022Article
- The use of mobile phones for the prevention and control of arboviral diseases: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Big Data Impacting Dynamic Food Safety Risk Management in the Food Chain.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Exploitation of Outgoing and Incoming Telephone Calls in the Context of Circadian Rhythms of Social Activity Among Elderly People: Observational Descriptive Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Article
- Public involvement & engagement in the work of a data safe haven: a case study of the SAIL Databank.International journal of population data science · 2020Article
- Circadian Rhythms in the Telephone Calls of Older Adults: Observational Descriptive Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Observational
- Association between social asymmetry and depression in older adults: A phone Call Detail Records analysis.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Toward an Ethically Founded Framework for the Use of Mobile Phone Call Detail Records in Health Research.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2019Article
- Public Views on Using Mobile Phone Call Detail Records in Health Research: Qualitative Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2019Article
- Public health research using cell phone derived mobility data in sub-Saharan Africa: Ethical issues.South African journal of scienceArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCall detail records (CDRs) are collected by mobile network operators in the course of providing their service. CDRs are increasingly being used in research along with other forms of big data and represent an emerging data type with potential for public good. Many jurisdictions have infrastructures for health data research that could benefit from the integration of CDRs with health data.
objectiveThe objective of this study was to review how CDRs have been used in health research and to identify challenges and potential opportunities for their wider use in conjunction with health data.
methodsA literature review was conducted using structured search terms making use of major search engines. Initially, 4066 items were identified. Following screening, 46 full text articles were included in the qualitative synthesis. Information extracted included research topic area, population of study, datasets used, information governance and ethical considerations, study findings, and data limitations.
resultsThe majority of published studies were focused on low-income and middle-income countries. Making use of the location element in CDRs, studies often modeled the transmission of infectious diseases or estimated population movement following natural disasters with a view to implementing interventions. CDRs were used in anonymized or aggregated form, and the process of gaining regulatory approvals varied with data provider and by jurisdiction. None included public views on the use of CDRs in health research.
conclusionsDespite various challenges and limitations, anonymized mobile phone CDRs have been used successfully in health research. The use of aggregated data is a safeguard but also a further limitation. Greater opportunities could be gained if validated anonymized CDRs were integrated with routine health records at an individual level, provided that permissions and safeguards could be put in place. Further work is needed, including gaining public views, to develop an ethically founded framework for the use of CDRs in health research.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.