Field Study in Deploying Restless Multi-Armed Bandits: Assisting Non-Profits in Improving Maternal and Child Health

Understand

The widespread availability of cell phones has enabled non-profits to deliver critical health information to their beneficiaries in a timely manner.

• This paper describes our work to assist non-profits that employ automated messaging programs to deliver timely preventive care information to beneficiaries (new and expecting mothers) during pregnancy and after delivery.
• Unfortunately, a key challenge in such information delivery programs is that a significant fraction of beneficiaries drop out of the program.
• Yet, non-profits often have limited health-worker resources (time) to place crucial service calls for live interaction with beneficiaries to prevent such engagement drops.