Ghana experiences struggles with high rates of morbidity and mortality attributable to both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Efforts to address the health inequalities and concerns – beginning with the country’s disease surveillance procedures – have produced mixed results due to a lack of innovative approaches and the necessary infrastructure to support creative solutions. Modern technological advancements have produced many commonplace items such as the mobile phone. With a national mobile phone subscription rate of 134.32 phones per 100 people, Ghana is uniquely poised to host ingenious advances in the arena of disease surveillance by utilizing mobile health (mHealth) technology. This study examined mobile device usage behavior among key informants in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, and also explored their willingness to adopt a mobile phone-based participatory surveillance system. Additionally, this study investigated the desired features and characteristics of such an mHealth surveillance system through individual interviews which probed topics such: as attitudes towards transmitting health information via the Internet, differences in sources of health information, and the community’s desire to actively participate in disease surveillance. The approach for developing interview questions and topic themes was guided by the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to ensure a systematic approach to this study. Individual interviews were supplemented with standardized and structured surveys distributed to all study participants. Results from this study indicate that key informants ascribe a high level of importance to processes that have potential to influence their health. As such, they are willing to share health-related information via a mobile app system as long as their information remains private and they are explicitly made aware of the potential benefits of using the app. This study concludes with recommendations for developing a participatory mHealth surveillance system as well as recommendations for future research.
