Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Field Study In Deploying Restless Multi-Armed Bandits: Assisting Non-Profits In Improving Maternal And Child Health, Aditya Mate, Lovish Madan, Aparna Taneja, Neha Madhiwalla, Shresth Verma, Gargi Singh, Aparna Hegde, Pradeep Varakantham, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

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. To assist non-profits in optimizing …