Disparities in Mobile Phone Ownership Reflect Inequities in Access to Healthcare

Human movement and population connectivity inform infectious disease management. Remote data, particularly mobile phone usage data, are frequently used to track mobility in outbreak response efforts without measuring representation in target populations. Using a detailed interview instrument, we measure population representation in phone ownership, mobility, and access to healthcare in a highly mobile population with low access to health care in Namibia, a middle-income country. We find that 1) phone ownership is both low and biased by gender, 2) phone ownership is correlated with differences in mobility and access to healthcare, and 3) reception is spatially unequal and scarce in non-urban areas. We demonstrate that mobile phone data do not represent the populations and locations that most need public health improvements. Finally, we show that relying on these data to inform public health decisions can be harmful with the potential to magnify health inequities rather than reducing them. To reduce health inequities, it is critical to integrate multiple data streams with measured, non-overlapping biases to ensure data representativeness for vulnerable populations.