Royal Health Awareness Society NCD prevention Chatbot

Every year, 41 million people around the world are killed by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) These include 15 million premature deaths of people between the ages of 30-69. Lack of physical activity, unhealthy nutrition, as well as tobacco use are some of the main risk factors for developing and dying from NCDs. Tackling NCD risk factors in novel ways contributes to improving likelihood of leading healthier lives and contributes to progress towards healthy cities. 

Capitalizing on the high penetration of technology in middle and low income countries to increase access to preventive healthcare and tackle risk factors will allow for prevention of NCD's and improvement of the overall social environment and community's health behaviors. RHAS proposes the use of a health chatbot to increase community's access to personalized follow-up and health tips that relate to risk factors. The chatbot can carry conversations and provide advice in a private setting. 

Noncommunicable diseases cause 71% of deaths around the world and are an important area of focus to progress towards healthy cities. Non-communicable disease's risk factors include multiple behaviors such as unhealthy nutrition, lack of physical activity, and use of tobacco. Interventions to encourage healthier behaviors require intensive follow-up on the part of the health care provider and need consistent input from already overburdened health systems. 

This issue is emphasized in low to middle income countries where health systems don't have the capacity to provide preventative services. In countries such as Jordan, mortality from NCDs is higher than the global average (76% vs. 71%) and is becoming the leading cause of mortality and the nation is faced with an annual health expenditure due to chronic disease of an estimated 600 million JoDs. These alarming figures necessitate immediate interventions within local communities to turn around the current behavioral trends observed, including those associated with population dynamics (ex. growth rates, fertility) all of which have an effect on every aspect of, human social and economic progress.

The RHAS NCD Prevention Chatbot aims to provide access to health advice and health tips to everyone in Jordan both host and refugee communities. 

The RHAS NCD Prevention Chatbot will communicate with users on a regular basis offering healthy tips, disseminating healthy customized messages about NCDs, and offer healthcare advice. Users will be able to link with medical practitioners, ask selected medical practitioners specific health questions via the RHAS NCDs Prevention Chatbot, ask to schedule an appointment and receive other useful and important medical information. The RHAS NCD Prevention Chatbot will serve as a medical lifeline for users, as depicted in the diagrams below.

Our solution capitalizes on the high penetration of Facebook in Jordan to offer an AI preventive health tool. Due to lack of resources as well as the social stigma that concerns health, preventive health services are not accessible or activated. Offering such a technology using a model that is similar to a conversation with a health care provider increases individual's access to such a service. 

Our Solution utilizes mobile-enabled patient portals, such as Chabot, make it easier for providers, staff and patients to communicate. A Chabot (also known as a smartbot, talkbot, chatterbot, Bot, IM bot, interactive agent, conversational interface or Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer program or an artificial intelligence which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner. Chatbots use sophisticated natural language processing systems, but many simpler systems scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a database.

The use of the chatbot increases the access of individuals to personalized care and advice concerning their eating habits. This personalized care will improve the user's eating habits thus reflecting on their risk of developing non communicable diseases as well helping them manage existing diseases. 

1. During the pilot phase: The English Version of the bot reached 139,056 individuals 

2. In one year we expect to serve 250,000 people using the Arabic version

3. In five years we expect to serve 1,000,000 people using the Arabic version

We aim for the tool to accommodate more health issues and offer follow-up on mental health issues in particular due to the stigma present in the community concerning mental health. We also aim to target different age groups since FB is used by people of all age groups.

We anticipate that to some individuals the follow-up offered may not be of interest. Moreover, funding might be a barrier to keeping the solution running and promoting it to the right beneficiaries. 

We are currently studying different methods of promoting the tool to the community whereby its potential benefit is highlighted and it appeals to the different types of individuals to help them reach their health goals. 

As for funding, as the solution becomes fully operational and we have evidence of its efficacy, attainment of additional funding will be easier. even in it's pilot phase, the tool is rallying interest for funding on the national level. 

Full-time staff: 3

Part-time staff: 1

RHAS's team have extensive experience with implementing public health programs that aim to prevent disease or manage existing non-communicable diseases. The team's experience also spans across different age groups from children to elderly patients with multiple NCD's. 

The team also has extensive experience in project design and development,  health content development, research and communication

MicroClinic International 

Personalized follow-up on health issues will be provided to the Jordanian community for free. The service is provided via FB for free to any subscriber and will continue to be provided for free. This type of follow-up will save expenses on a national level when it comes to health expenditure. 

During the first stage, RHAS is collaborating with MCI and has pending partnership with a local telecommunication company to further develop the solution and help in its dissemination. 

Further funding is being sought for the coming stages and organizations that have an interest in health programs are being approached. 

We are keen to make the most of the expertise present among Solve's community in developing our solution. We believe the differing perspectives present among the team will go a long way in making the solution more relevant and beneficial to the community.

Moreover, additional funding received through Solve and Solve's network will allow us to hire a larger team to operate the solution and to maximize its potential.  

We are interested in partnering with national and international organization as well as academic institutions to develop our organizations.