Development of smart phone-based child health screening tools for community health workers

Child health screening is a fundamental component of public health, which includes neonatal screening, detection of infectious diseases and monitoring of nutritional status. Unfortunately, the tools to perform these tasks are often very crude, requiring manual input of data which is prone to error and falsification. Furthermore, the staff which performs these duties often lack clinical training or education. To meet this need, we have developed a low-cost child screening platform, called Baby Naapp, which enables community health workers to automatically collect data from a child without the need for any manual input. Making use of the smart phone camera, machine vision software, and augmented reality, our mobile app tools automatically measures a baby's height and weight just using a traditional weighing scale and a custom baby blanket. We have also developed a camera-based app which automatically records the child's Middle Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC), which is a standard measurement for assessing malnutrition. In addition, we have also integrated a custom pulse oximeter device to measure a baby's heart rate and heart rate variability, and we have integrated a low-cost thermal camera module to assess a baby's thermal regulation and potentially screen for infections. All measurements are recorded digitally and uploaded to a central server for use by clinicians and the local public health officials. The software for baby height, weight, and MUAC have been validated in the laboratory setting against manual measurements, with measured errors of +/− 1.2cm for height, +/− 90 grams for weight, and +/− 2.0 mm for MUAC. We are currently conducting a 4-month feasibility study of these tools with 13 ASHA workers in an urban slum area of New Delhi, India, in collaboration with the local government and the Public Health Foundation of India.