Text Message Reminder-Recalls For Early Childhood Vaccination

Text 4 Health-Kids: Text Message Reminder-Recalls For Early Childhood Vaccination

Although the investigators have reached the Healthy People 2010 goal of 80% coverage among U.S. children 19-35 months of age for the primary immunization series, 20% of children still remain underimmunized. In addition, pockets of low immunization coverage and outbreaks of vaccine preventable disease persist. Immunization reminder-recalls have been shown to be successful, but have been limited by the ability to identify and reach large target populations in a real-time, automated fashion. Reminder-recalls via text message may offer an innovative opportunity to improve vaccination coverage. Currently, 91% of Americans own a cell phone. Prior research by our team suggests that text messages reminder recalls may be an effective tool to remind parents about their children's vaccines. In this study, the investigators will demonstrate the effectiveness of tailored text message appointment and immunization reminders linked to a well-established and functional immunization registry to increase coverage rates and timeliness of the sentinel vaccines of MMR and HepA. The investigators will target parents of young children from an underserved population that is primarily Latino, with low socioeconomic status.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Vaccination
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Text message

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 2586
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10032
      • Columbia University Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 9 months to 50 years (ADULT, CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Parents of child >9 months to 25 months
• Child with at least one visit to one of the participating clinical sites in the previous 12 months
• Parental cell phone number recorded in the registration system

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Text message reminders	Other: Text message; text message appointment and immunization reminders
ACTIVE_COMPARATOR: standard of care for MMR, letter reminder for Hep A; MMR: automated phone call appointment reminder Hep A: recall letter, automated phone call appointment reminder	Other: Text message; text message appointment and immunization reminders

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Receipt of MMR1	by 13 and 16 months of age

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
Timeliness of HepA vaccination post-recall	4,12, 24 weeks
Attendance at appointments	after appointment

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Columbia University
• Investigators: Study Director: Annika Hofstetter, MD PhD MPH, Columbia University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: June 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): July 1, 2013
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): July 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 9, 2010
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 10, 2010
• First Posted (ESTIMATE): September 13, 2010

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE): July 25, 2014
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 24, 2014
• Last Verified: July 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Underimmunization, text message, vaccination; Underimmunization
• Other Study ID Numbers: AAAF4263