Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research
Child and adolescent overweight is a growing public health problem globally. Europe and low and middle-income (LMIC) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa provide sufficiently suitable populations to learn from with respect to the potential for mobile health (mHealth) interventions in this area of researc...
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doaj-fd8a18858f3d4b8fb3eca833b69dc0d62021-03-11T05:56:30ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Public Health2296-25652021-03-01910.3389/fpubh.2021.604439604439Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future ResearchPriscilla Reddy0Priscilla Reddy1Natisha Dukhi2Ronel Sewpaul3Mohammad Ali Afzal Ellahebokus4Nilen Sunder Kambaran5William Jobe6Human and Social Capabilities Division, Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, South AfricaFaculty of Health Sciences, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South AfricaHuman and Social Capabilities Division, Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, South AfricaHuman and Social Capabilities Division, Human Sciences Research Council, Cape Town, South AfricaAnalytics, Retirement, Compensation and Health Actuarial Consulting, Westlake, Cape Town, South AfricaAnalytics, Retirement, Compensation and Health Actuarial Consulting, Westlake, Cape Town, South AfricaDepartment of Informatics, University West, Trollhättan, SwedenChild and adolescent overweight is a growing public health problem globally. Europe and low and middle-income (LMIC) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa provide sufficiently suitable populations to learn from with respect to the potential for mobile health (mHealth) interventions in this area of research. The aim of this paper is to identify mHealth interventions on prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Sweden and report on their effects, in order to inform future research in this area. A search of peer-reviewed publications was performed using PubMed, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, and Scopus. The search included all articles published up to August 2019. The search strings consisted of MeSH terms related to mHealth, overweight or obesity, children, adolescents or youth and individual countries in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, a combination of free-text words; mobile phone, physical activity, exercise, diet, weight, BMI, and healthy eating was also used. Seven studies were reported from Europe and no eligible studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of this narrative review indicate a lack of research in the development and testing of mHealth interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity. There is a need for an evidence base of mHealth interventions that are both relevant and appropriate in order to stem the epidemic of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in these countries. Uptake of such interventions is likely to be high as there is high penetrance of mobile phone technology amongst adolescents, even within poor communities in Africa.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.604439/fullchildhood obesitymHealthadolescent obesitySwedenSouth Africa |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Priscilla Reddy Priscilla Reddy Natisha Dukhi Ronel Sewpaul Mohammad Ali Afzal Ellahebokus Nilen Sunder Kambaran William Jobe |
spellingShingle |
Priscilla Reddy Priscilla Reddy Natisha Dukhi Ronel Sewpaul Mohammad Ali Afzal Ellahebokus Nilen Sunder Kambaran William Jobe Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research Frontiers in Public Health childhood obesity mHealth adolescent obesity Sweden South Africa |
author_facet |
Priscilla Reddy Priscilla Reddy Natisha Dukhi Ronel Sewpaul Mohammad Ali Afzal Ellahebokus Nilen Sunder Kambaran William Jobe |
author_sort |
Priscilla Reddy |
title |
Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research |
title_short |
Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research |
title_full |
Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research |
title_fullStr |
Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research |
title_full_unstemmed |
Mobile Health Interventions Addressing Childhood and Adolescent Obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe: Current Landscape and Potential for Future Research |
title_sort |
mobile health interventions addressing childhood and adolescent obesity in sub-saharan africa and europe: current landscape and potential for future research |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Public Health |
issn |
2296-2565 |
publishDate |
2021-03-01 |
description |
Child and adolescent overweight is a growing public health problem globally. Europe and low and middle-income (LMIC) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa provide sufficiently suitable populations to learn from with respect to the potential for mobile health (mHealth) interventions in this area of research. The aim of this paper is to identify mHealth interventions on prevention and treatment of childhood and adolescent obesity in Sub-Saharan Africa and Sweden and report on their effects, in order to inform future research in this area. A search of peer-reviewed publications was performed using PubMed, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, and Scopus. The search included all articles published up to August 2019. The search strings consisted of MeSH terms related to mHealth, overweight or obesity, children, adolescents or youth and individual countries in Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, a combination of free-text words; mobile phone, physical activity, exercise, diet, weight, BMI, and healthy eating was also used. Seven studies were reported from Europe and no eligible studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. The results of this narrative review indicate a lack of research in the development and testing of mHealth interventions for childhood and adolescent obesity. There is a need for an evidence base of mHealth interventions that are both relevant and appropriate in order to stem the epidemic of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in these countries. Uptake of such interventions is likely to be high as there is high penetrance of mobile phone technology amongst adolescents, even within poor communities in Africa. |
topic |
childhood obesity mHealth adolescent obesity Sweden South Africa |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.604439/full |
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