Digital health technologies improve malaria vaccine adherence and data quality in African populations.

This systematic review assessed the impact of digital health (DH) and mobile computing (mHealth) technologies within African contexts. The population consisted of African populations, and the setting encompassed various African contexts. Interventions included mobile reminders, mobile-based adverse event reporting systems, culturally tailored digital communication, AI-driven chatbots, multilingual communication tools, and telehealth platforms. The primary outcomes assessed were vaccine uptake, adherence, timeliness, data quality, trust, safety reporting, and vaccine literacy.

The main results demonstrated that these technologies significantly improved vaccination adherence, timeliness, and data quality. However, the review did not report specific effect sizes, absolute numbers, or p-values. Safety and tolerability data, including adverse events and discontinuations, were not reported in the available evidence. The review did not provide specific limitations beyond the lack of reported numerical data.

Practice relevance suggests that integrating mHealth into malaria vaccine programs could optimize adherence, improve pharmacovigilance, and foster public trust. This approach may advance digital health equity and pandemic resilience in Africa. Given that the study phase and specific effect metrics were not reported, clinicians should interpret these findings as supportive but requiring further quantitative validation before widespread implementation.