Mobile technology program helps smokers in India quit

October 14, 2016

An estimated one million people die in India every year from tobacco-related illnesses, which could have been avoided by stopping tobacco use. But the government of India also recognizes the difficulty of quitting tobacco. To help consumers stop tobacco use, a mobile phone-based initiative has been launched in India by the government, together with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN).

Almost 50% of men in India regularly use tobacco, exposing themselves and their families to tobacco-related deaths and diseases.However, access to cessation clinics has traditionally limited the number of people able to access the support they need.

The WHO MPOWER measure of “Offering help to quit tobacco use” provides a cost-effective approach for countries that helps increase the likelihood that a smoker will quit successfully, in turn reducing their risk of a slow and painful death.

During the past 12 months, the Indian government, WHO and ITU have worked together to overcome this problem by using mobile phones to significantly increase population access to cessation programs.

The mTobacco Cessation program has been a collaborative effort between a national team and global experts, working to help people quit tobacco use through support delivered by mobile phones. In particular, WHO and ITU have been providing technical support in India to develop and adopt elements of BeHe@lthy Be Mobile, a global initiative helping governments scale up mHealth solutions as part of national health systems.

Users of the India mTobaccoCessation program self-enroll through a missed call or web registration service, and then receive tailored advice and support via daily and weekly SMS messages sent to their mobile phones. The program provides targeted support to help people overcome the personal challenge of maintaining efforts to quit tobacco use. It also generates real-time data on people who join the initiative, how they are using it and if they are quitting or not.

The impact of the Indian initiative on access to cessation services has been huge. Approximately 2 million people have registered since January 2016 due to the Ministry of Health’s nationwide promotion of the mTobaccoCessation program, which ranks as the world’s largest.

The Indian initiative also represents a turning-point in the approach to scaling cessation services for the country and others.

India’s experiences are also being shared through the WHO-ITU initiative with other countries developing mTobaccoCessation services, including Tunisia and the Philippines.

The potential of mHealth to improve access to health services is not restricted to tobacco alone. It is also opening up new possibilities for public health to use mobile technology to provide population-level access to health services for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), particularly cardiovascular and lung diseases, cancers and diabetes.

In July 2016 a mobile-based diabetes service was launched in India and currently provides information to over 97,000 people on simple measures to prevent diabetes and manage their condition in between clinic visits.

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