# Mobile Health Intervention to Promote Positive Infant Health Outcomes in Guatemala

> **NIH NIH R33** · CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF LOS ANGELES · 2023 · $287,267

## Abstract

The amount and quality of infants’ interaction with caregivers impact their opportunities for optimal development,
providing the foundation for lifelong health outcomes. Nevertheless, around the world, some 250 million young
children are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential. To improve development for these at-risk
children, evidence-based approaches include supporting caregivers to provide nurturing care. However, scaling
these services and support for caregivers is challenging in many low-resource delivery environments, where
over-taxing of frontline healthcare workers is a limiting constraint. For infant development, mHealth technologies
have the potential to solve this problem by providing tailored content directly to caregivers, involving and
empowering them to promote infant development, promoting and facilitating interactions with health workers
when areas of concern are identified and, therefore, and expanding the reach of healthcare systems. The
objectives of this project are to develop mHealth smartphone technology which can be used to engage primary
caregivers directly in the active monitoring of their infants’ development, and to provide tailored feedback and
support for the provision of nurturing care. In addition, we will also prospectively assess the implementation
characteristics of the technology—usability, acceptability, and sustainability—for caregivers and health workers.
Aim 1 is to use an agile design approach to develop and audience test a smartphone application to engage
caregivers in monitoring their infants’ development and to provide tailored anticipatory guidance for nurturing
care. Aim 2 is to assess the implementation characteristics of the smartphone application through a longitudinal,
six-month usability trial, to determine caregiver engagement over time and to assess the perceived usefulness
of the application. Aim 3 is to determine the effectiveness of a smartphone-based, real-time caregiver feedback
intervention to promote positive infant developmental outcomes and improved caregiving behaviors.
This exploratory/developmental research application responds to PAR 19-376’s call to “study the development,
validation, feasibility, and effectiveness of innovative mobile health (mHealth) interventions or tools specifically
suited for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)”, in this case a culturally-based, family-focused approached
to engaging caregivers in nurturing care for infants at-risk. This is a multidisciplinary proposal, involving
pediatrics, developmental and community psychology, physical therapy, and biomedical engineering. Our results
will contribute to the evidence base for the use of mobile technology (client-focused applications providing real-
time interactive feedback) to directly engage target populations around important public health priorities while
building research capacity for mHealth in an LMIC, Guatemala. This application is a partnership between the
Children’s Hospital L...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10877341
- **Project number:** 4R33HD107983-03
- **Recipient organization:** CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Peter Rohloff
- **Activity code:** R33 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $287,267
- **Award type:** 4N
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10877341

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10877341, Mobile Health Intervention to Promote Positive Infant Health Outcomes in Guatemala (4R33HD107983-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10877341. Licensed CC0.

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