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IntroductionOver 52 million children under 5 years of age become wasted each year, but only 17% of these children receive treatment. Novel methods to identify and deliver treatment to malnourished children are necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals target for child health. Mobile health (mHealth) programmes may provide an opportunity to rapidly identify malnourished children in the community and link them to care.Methods and analysisThis randomised controlled trial will recruit 1200 children aged 6–12 months at routine vaccine appointments in Migori and Homa Bay Counties, Kenya. Caregiver–infant dyads will be randomised to either a maternally administered malnutrition monitoring system (MAMMS) or standard of care (SOC). Study staff will train all caregivers to measure their child’s mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC). Caregivers in the MAMMS arm will be given two colour coded and graduated insertion MUAC tapes and be enrolled in a mHealth system that sends weekly short message service (SMS) messages prompting caregivers to measure and report their child’s MUAC by SMS. Caregivers in the SOC arm will receive routine monitoring by community health volunteers coupled with a quarterly visit from study staff to ensure adequate screening coverage. The primary outcome is identification of childhood malnutrition, defined as MUAC Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by review boards at the University of Washington and the Kenya Medical Research Institute. A data and safety monitoring board has been convened, and the results of the trial will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, presented at appropriate conferences and to key stakeholders.Trial registration numberNCT03967015.

OBJECTIVES: Globally, only 17% of children with wasting receive treatment. In Kenya, 4% of the 7 million children under-5 years of age are wasted and 26% are stunted. The Mama Aweza trial will test whether a two-way short message service (SMS) mobile health system, the Maternal Administered Malnutrition Monitoring System (MAMMS), can increase the coverage of malnutrition management programs in low-and-middle income countries. METHODS: Five formative focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with caregivers at an immunization clinic in Migori County, Kenya to inform feasibility and content of SMS messages in the MAMMS system. Caregivers were asked to explain anticipated facilitators and barriers to participation in a SMS program to facilitate home-based mid upper-arm circumference (MUAC) monitoring. FGDs also reviewed educational messages that accompany weekly SMS reminders to measure and report their child's MUAC. The feedback from these FGDs was included in the clinical trial, which begun in August 2019. RESULTS: The most anticipated challenge to responding to weekly messages was the use of a shared phone particularly that the SMS would be deleted or the caregiver would not be informed of the message. The greatest anticipated challenge for sending messages was and not knowing how to send a SMS. Overall, 52 messages were written on the following topics: developmental milestones, encouragement, fever, diarrhea, malaria, ear infections, sanitation and hygiene, vaccinations, respiratory illness, and kitchen gardening. To date, 144 mother-infant dyads have been enrolled and 77 randomly assigned to the MAMMS arm. Sixty-nine (90%) caregivers have responded to ≥1 message and 503 (68%) of 742 automated messages have received a response. At enrollment, 21 (27%) of caregivers in the MAMMS arm reported a shared phone, with no current evidence that caregivers sharing a phone respond less than those with their own phone. CONCLUSIONS: Caregivers found SMS-based malnutrition screening to be acceptable and engaging. In regions with high literacy and high mobile phone ownership, such as Kenya, SMS supported home MUAC monitoring may improve malnutrition screening coverage and lead to earlier identification and treatment. FUNDING SOURCES: Thrasher Research Foundation 14,656.