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The problem
Intervention: Short message service (SMS) reminders sent to caregivers to remind them of vaccination appointments
Who it was tested with: 32,712 infants across 11 low- and middle-income countries (17,135 in intervention groups, 15,577 in control groups).
Children or communities are compared with a group that did not receive the intervention, or followed over years. This is the design that best separates what the intervention did from everything else that changed.
"Meta-analysis was conducted using random-effects models to generate pooled estimates of risk ratio (RR)" with results showing "SMS reminders significantly improved childhood immunisation coverage (RR=1.16; 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.21)" and "SMS reminders significantly improved timely receipt of childhood vaccines (RR=1.21; 95% CI: 1.12 to 1.30)". This is a high-quality systematic review synthesising evidence from multiple experimental and quasi-experimental studies across multiple countries.
Significant heterogeneity across included studies (I²=90.4% for coverage, I²=87.3% for timeliness), indicating substantial variation in results between studies. The review does not assess implementation feasibility, cost-effectiveness, or long-term sustainability of SMS reminder programmes.
Across countries and designs
2 studies · 12 countries
