The Use of mHealth in the Promotion of Smoking Cessation in Nigeria: An Untapped Potential

The use of mobile or cellular phone Apps for the promotion of health care service delivery (mobile Health or mHealth) has increasingly gained momentum in the developed and developing countries alike. And with an unprecedented upsurge in the ownership of mobile phones by households in Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria in particular, a huge but untapped potential exist for their widespread application in disease control interventions. This review shows that between 5.6% – 6.9% Nigerians aged 15 years and above are known to be current smokers. The aim of thispaper therefore, is to examine the plume opportunity for curbing this burden by promoting smoking cessation via mHealth. Available evidence accessed also revealed that 75% of households in Nigeria own mobile phones and that there are up to 162,763,480 GSM subscribers in the country and a market penetration rate of about 84%. These varied data on the volume of cellular phone availability and connectivity presents an open market for mHealth. Leveraging on a number of behavior change theories, some smartphone applications have been developed and deployed in the country. Not less than 30 mHealthprogrammes have been either piloted or/and fully implemented in different degrees in Nigeria. Though most of such mHealth programs implemented have recorded laudable degrees of success, they were not without some documented challenges. Some of the challenges identified include lack of a reliable power source for recharging of cell phone batteries, data security issues, occasional failure of mobile data/apps to synchronize and integrate with other health system data. Effective collaborative efforts with relevant stakeholders within an amiable government policy environment would go a long way towards promoting smoking cessation using mHealth in the country.

Keywords: mHealth, Mobile Apps, Nigeria, Smoking cessation.