Our work

The use of mobile and wireless technologies has the potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe. There are reportedly more than 7 billion mobile telephone subscriptions across the world, over 70% of which are in low- or middle- income countries. In many places, people are more likely to have access to a mobile telephone than to clean water. As a global society, we are also facing a looming threat of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which kill 41 million people each year, around 71% of all deaths.

To address this challenge, the Be He@lthy, Be Mobile (BHBM) initiative was set up by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication union (ITU) in 2012. BHBM works with governments to scale up mHealth services for NCDs and their risk factors. Millions of people have already been reached through the programmes and evaluation shows that they are impacting positively on users’ health.

The approach is deliberately designed to be scalable: instead of promoting specific products, it provides cross-cutting health content and technical support which can be used and incorporated into other applications.

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Publications

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Global strategy on digital health 2020-2027

The purpose for a Global Strategy on Digital Health is to promote healthy lives and wellbeing for everyone, everywhere, at all ages. To deliver its potential,...

Digital transformation handbook for health product catalogue

This handbook provides countries with a stepwise approach to implementing standardized national product catalogues and product master data management processes....

Supporting tobacco cessation through chat: digital Channels Toolkit

This open-source toolkit provides a comprehensive guide for implementing mTobaccoCessation intervention on chat-based platforms. Designed to be adaptable...