Wearables and Technology for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Behavior Change (Round 19)Last date: 3 May 2017


Roadblocks:Maternal, newborn and child health has seen significant yet inconsistent improvements over the past 15 years. In order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals set for 2030, mortality reduction must accelerate. We are challenged to lower annual global neonatal deaths from 2.7 million to 1.2 million, and annual global maternal deaths from 303,000 to 97,000. Achieving these targets will require scaling up proven interventions such as:

Newborns

    kangaroo mother care (KMC)
    clean cord care
    neonatal resuscitation
    diagnosis and treatment of infection

Mothers

    prophylactic uterotonics
    antenatal care
    prevention and treatment of hypertensive disorders for mothers.

Existing tools may be inadequate to 1) facilitate behavior change among target populations, and 2) improve data collection for research in low-resource settings. The barriers for behavior change are numerous and span motivation, ability (skills and knowledge), and environment. For example, some barriers to KMC practice include women’s discomfort in performing typical household tasks while their fragile newborn is on their chest, limited knowledge of the benefits of KMC, and lack of social support.

Research data is often limited by burden of collection resulting in incomplete or inaccurate data. Data is often easiest to collect in facilities, which means that mothers and newborns that don’t reach facilities are left out and data may not reflect population realities. We are excited to explore the role that wearables and sensors can play in overcoming these barriers.

What we are looking for:We seek wearable and/or sensor technologies that will improve the health of mothers and newborns by 1) increasing uptake of healthy behaviors and/or 2) facilitating research on maternal and neonatal interventions in low-resource settings.

These new wearables and sensors should:

    Have a clear theory of change for catalyzing healthy maternal/newborn behaviors
    Facilitate data collection for maternal-newborn health research with consideration of

   data privacy mechanisms
   

   Be feasible within limited infrastructure environments (e.g. electricity, internet access, 

   etc.)
 

   Consider projections and trends in technology in low-income settings (e.g. level of

   mobile phone technology)
   

   Consider the societal norms of target communities in low income countries
  

   Consider the comfort and safety of the proposed user
   

   Consider the sustainability and maintenance of the technology
    Be easy to use
   

   Incorporate a human-centered design approach. For more on human-centered design,

   please refer to this resource and this website.

We seek proposals that:

    Are rooted in authentic understanding of and experience in local contexts
   

    Bridge the gaps between user need and demand with technology
   

    Are forward-thinking, leveraging upcoming and future technological trends

What we will consider for funding:

    Tracker of temperature and position that can stimulate KMC practice
   

    Sensor for newborn that measures heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature, apnea or

    more
   

    Sensor on the infant that can alert the mother to infant sleep/wake state, hunger and

    activity
   

    Wearable on an expectant mother that could measure and transmit data on blood

    pressure, heart rate, temperature, activity, sleep state and fetal heart rate
  

    Patch that can measure metabolites in an infant transcutaneously including glucose,

    bilirubin, Na and Hb.
   

    Wearable that will reinforce positive behavior in the mother in breastfeeding, language

    interaction, soothing behaviors
   

    Sensor to facilitate handwashing or other infection prevention measures

What we will NOT consider for funding:

In addition to proposals that do not meet the requirements outlined above, we will also not consider:

    Applications proposing basic research without clear relevance to the goals of this topic;
   

    Ideas that do not specifically address causes of neonatal or maternal death;
   

    Ideas without a clearly articulated and testable hypothesis and metrics;
   

    Ideas for which the described indicator of success cannot be demonstrated within the

    scope of the GCE Phase 1 award ($100,000 over 18 months);
   

    Proposals involving clinical trials in human volunteers or patients or large-scale field

    trials at this time (although those may be needed in the future).

For further information visit: http://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/challenge/wearables-and-technology-maternal-neonatal-and-child-health-behavior-change-round-19

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