Preventing cardiovascular disease in rural Indonesia by using a smartphone app in a socio-medical intervention

Narrative

Cardiovascular disease accounts for 1 in 3 deaths in Indonesia. Research by Tampubolon demonstrated that nearly 70% of Indonesians aged 40 and older with moderate to high cardiovascular risk were not receiving cardiovascular care. The research led to the development of SMARThealth, an intervention which improves care by providing village health workers with training and technology to share data with qualified health professionals, who prescribe treatment. As a result, 3,750 people out of 6,579 identified as at risk of cardiovascular death benefited from extended life expectancy. SMARThealth has been adopted by Malang’s District Government as part of its public health programme, and is being scaled up to make it available to 3,000,000 residents in the region.

Impact date	2018 → 2020