ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Leveraging mobile phones to attain sustainable development.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- mHealth interventions to reduce maternal and child mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia: A systematic literature review.Frontiers in global women's health · 2022Pooled it
- Socio-digital stratification and the threshold effects of digital inclusion on maternal health access in Somalia.Global health action · 2026Article
- "Please speak in Hindi": Cognitive interviews to improve measurement of digital access in North India.PloS one · 2026Article
- Co-development of the educational content of a proposed educational mobile health application prototype on oral cancer using Delphi technique.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Mapping subnational gender gaps in internet and mobile adoption using social media data.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Digital health technologies to transform women's health innovation and inclusive research.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Article
- Transforming women's health, empowerment, and gender equality with digital health: evidence-based policy and practice.The Lancet. Digital health · 2025Review
- ICT usage increases workforce geographical diversity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Roka Engagements and the Hybridization of Arranged and "Love" Marriage in Urban India.Journal of marriage and the family · 2025Article
- Mobile phone ownership among young adults in seven Southern African countries.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Factors associated with decision-making autonomy in healthcare utilization among married women from the Indonesia demographic health survey 2017.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mHealth adoption: Identification of the main barriers through an international comparative analysis.International journal of medical informatics · 2025Article
- Nursing students' access to technological devices in nursing education: A quantitative study in Namibia.Curationis · 2025Article
- Blocking mobile internet on smartphones improves sustained attention, mental health, and subjective well-being.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Impact of digital exposure on premarital sex and contraception use among unmarried Indian youth.Contraception and reproductive medicine · 2025Article
- Economic Evaluations of mHealth Interventions for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes: A Scoping Review.Journal of diabetes science and technology · 2025Article
- Access to mobile phone, socio-economic equity and maternal and child healthcare utilization in Rwanda: analysis of demographic and health surveys.Oxford open digital health · 2025Article
- Nearby armed conflict affects girls' education in Africa.PloS one · 2025Article
- A review of on-farm recording tools for smallholder dairy farming in developing countries.Tropical animal health and production · 2024Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
For billions of people across the globe, mobile phones enable relatively cheap and effective communication, as well as access to information and vital services on health, education, society, and the economy. Drawing on context-specific evidence on the effects of the digital revolution, this study provides empirical support for the idea that mobile phones are a vehicle for sustainable development at the global scale. It does so by assembling a wealth of publicly available macro- and individual-level data, exploring a wide range of demographic and social development outcomes, and leveraging a combination of methodological approaches. Macro-level analyses covering 200+ countries reveal that mobile-phone access is associated with lower gender inequality, higher contraceptive uptake, and lower maternal and child mortality. Individual-level analyses of survey data from sub-Saharan Africa, linked with detailed geospatial information, further show that women who own a mobile phone are better informed about sexual and reproductive health services and empowered to make independent decisions. Payoffs are larger among the least-developed countries and among the most disadvantaged micro-level clusters. Overall, our findings suggest that boosting mobile-phone access and coverage and closing digital divides, particularly among women, can be powerful tools to attain empowerment-related sustainable development goals, in an ultimate effort to enhance population health and well-being and reduce poverty.
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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.