Impact case study: Using phone-based technology to support COVID-19 responses in refugee settlements

Elrha Publication

UKHIH Publication

Output type

Case study

Location

Uganda

Focus areas

COVID-19

Topics

COVID-19

Refugees and IDPS

Programme

Humanitarian Research

Organisations

Washington University

Makerere University

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Person with a gloved hand holding a smartphone on public transport, emphasising safety during pandemic. Credit: Laura James via Pexels

Background

During COVID-19, refugee settlements in Uganda faced limited access to testing, prevention resources and timely public health information. Existing hotlines responded to calls but did not actively reach refugee communities, creating gaps in outbreak surveillance, understanding of community concerns and multilingual health communication.

The study

Dial-COVID tested a toll-free interactive voice response telephone service in nine local languages across Uganda’s refugee settlements. Callers completed surveys on symptoms, exposures and risk factors and received tailored health messages. The study combined call data, COVID-19 testing, follow-up surveys and qualitative interviews to assess whether IVR could support outbreak surveillance and public health messaging.

Findings and impact

Received more than 15,000 calls from all 31 refugee settlements in Uganda and delivered over 10,000 public health messages in nine languages.
Showed that IVR was not reliable for predicting COVID-19 outbreaks, due to overlapping symptoms, limited testing and operational constraints.
Demonstrated that phone-based voice systems can rapidly share multilingual health information and gather community insights at scale.
Generated evidence on barriers to prevention and vaccine uptake, including financial stress, crowded living conditions and lower vaccine confidence among some groups.
Informed humanitarian partners’ understanding of how IVR can complement, rather than replace, conventional surveillance.
Supported further exploration of IVR for HIV service delivery, feedback mechanisms and outbreak communication in Uganda and beyond.
Strengthened partner capacity in multilingual remote data collection, call-data interpretation and technology implementation in refugee settings.

Lessons learnt

Continuous engagement with research users, including sharing emerging findings throughout the study, maintained relevance and aligned the work with government priorities during the crisis.
Focusing on service gaps and aligning research with national systems and priorities increased the likelihood of uptake and integration into ongoing response efforts.
It is important to align the expectations of policy-relevant results with the realities of designing and executing complex research in operationally challenging humanitarian contexts.

Partners

University of Washington, Makerere University Infectious Diseases Institute, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Medical Teams International, Viamo.

Methodology

R2HC captures detailed case studies through a process that triangulates and validates evidence on uptake and impact. The case study methodology and full version of this summary case study including references are available on request. Outputs and resources from this study are available on the project page.

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