ArticlePLOS digital health2023
Disparities in mobile phone ownership reflect inequities in access to healthcare.
Article in PLOS digital health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Structural drivers of health inequality in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence and policy implications.Health policy OPEN · 2026Article
- Cross-national variations and demographic disparities in health surveillance system performance: a comparative analysis of OECD member countries.Health research policy and systems · 2026Article
- Herpes simplex virus genomes from an under-sampled population in Namibia reveal novel genetic diversity.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- An Evaluation of Digital Health Tools to Support Multidisciplinary Teams in Managing Patients with Type 2 Diabetes.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Review
- Article
- Effectiveness of mobile health technology-enabled interventions to improve management and control of hypertension and diabetes in India- a systematic review.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Review
- 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
- From an idea to the marketplace: Identifying and addressing ethical and regulatory considerations across the digital health product-development lifecycle.BMC digital health · 2024Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Human movement and population connectivity inform infectious disease management. Remote data, particularly mobile phone usage data, are frequently used to track mobility in outbreak response efforts without measuring representation in target populations. Using a detailed interview instrument, we measure population representation in phone ownership, mobility, and access to healthcare in a highly mobile population with low access to health care in Namibia, a middle-income country. We find that 1) phone ownership is both low and biased by gender, 2) phone ownership is correlated with differences in mobility and access to healthcare, and 3) reception is spatially unequal and scarce in non-urban areas. We demonstrate that mobile phone data do not represent the populations and locations that most need public health improvements. Finally, we show that relying on these data to inform public health decisions can be harmful with the potential to magnify health inequities rather than reducing them. To reduce health inequities, it is critical to integrate multiple data streams with measured, non-overlapping biases to ensure data representativeness for vulnerable populations.
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.