Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Smisha Agarwal, PhD, MPH ’09, MBA, studies how to improve maternal and newborn health in low-income settings by strengthening health systems and using technological solutions.
Research Interests
digital health; mhealth; neonatal health; maternal health; community health worker; cochrane reviews; impact evaluation
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
My research focuses on advancing maternal and newborn health in low-income settings by strengthening community health systems and harnessing innovative digital and AI-enabled solutions. Over the past decade, I have contributed to the global evidence base for digital health by developing rigorous methods for evaluating programs that employ mobile phones and other digital tools for health service delivery. I have led multiple Cochrane systematic reviews that have been directly used by the World Health Organization to shape global guidelines on the use of digital technologies to strengthen health systems- an effort that has helped standardize practice and guide national implementation strategies worldwide.
Beyond evidence generation, I work closely with bilateral and multilateral agencies to support the design, deployment, and scale-up of routine health information systems, ensuring they are responsive to the needs of frontline health workers and the populations they serve. My work bridges research, policy, and implementation, enabling countries to adopt digital health interventions that are context-appropriate, equitable, and sustainable.
More specifically, my research portfolio includes:
- Optimizing frontline service delivery through digital decision-support tools
Evaluating how community health workers and frontline works use digital devices and AI-based job aids to improve the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of primary health care, particularly for mothers and newborns, and informing national strategies for scaling these tools. - Applying predictive analytics and machine learning to strengthen quality and equity of care
Using routine monitoring data to build algorithms that identify gaps in care quality, generate early warnings for high-risk populations, and support more proactive, effective delivery of reproductive and maternal health services. Evaluating technologies that aim to strengthen quality of care. - Leveraging social media and digital trace data to understand health behaviors
Using data from online platforms and conversational agents to monitor emerging health trends, understand behavioral patterns, and inform more responsive public health interventions, while advancing ethical frameworks for the use of such data. - Conducting ecosystem and policy evaluations to guide digital transformation of primary healthcare
Generating insights on governance, financing, workforce readiness, and market dynamics that shape the uptake of digital tools, including AI—within primary health systems.
Much of my work is undertaken in close partnership with ministries of health, where I provide technical guidance on meaningful and responsible digitization of healthcare services, including the integration of AI into routine systems. I also collaborate with foundations and multilateral organizations to help shape global and regional agendas on digital health and AI for primary healthcare transformation, ensuring these technologies are used safely, effectively, and in ways that advance health equity.
Honors & Awards
Delta Omega- Alpha Chapter inductee (2018)
Best research award at the 22nd International AIDS Society Annual Conference by the International AIDS Society HIV Co-Infections and Co-Morbidities Initiative (IAS TB/HIV) to the MEASURE Evaluation team (2018)
Future Faculty Fellowship Program, University of North Carolina (2016-2017)
Population Reference Bureau Policy Communication Fellow (2016-2018)
Carolina Population Center Traineeship- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) (2014-2017)
Triangle Global Health Emerging Leader Award finalist (2015)
UNC-FHI360 Fellowship (2014-2015)
Harvard Asian American Alumni Summit Elevate Pitch Competition. Top 6 semi-finalist in Social Enterprise (healthcare) section (2010)
Eskridge Family Student Support Fund (JHSPH) (2009)
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health MPH Field Award to conduct independent research in Bangladesh (2008-2009)
Select Publications
Select publications
Agarwal, S., & Humphreys, G. (2025). Smisha Agarwal: supporting practical digital innovation. Bull World Health Organ, 103, 88-89.
Parmar, P., Ryu, J., Pandya, S., Sedoc, J., & Agarwal, S. (2022). Health-focused conversational agents in person-centered care: a review of apps. NPJ digital medicine, 5(1), 21.
Agarwal S, Tamrat T, Glenton C, Lewin S, Henschke N, Maayan N, Fønhus MS, Mehl GL. Decision?support tools via mobile devices to improve quality of care in primary healthcare settings. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2018(2)
Agarwal S, Labrique A. Newborn health on the line: the potential mHealth applications. Jama. 2014 Jul 16;312(3):229-30.
Agarwal S, LeFevre AE, Lee J, L’Engle K, Mehl G, Sinha C, Labrique A. Guidelines for reporting of health interventions using mobile phones: mobile health (mHealth) evidence reporting and assessment (mERA) checklist. Bmj. 2016 Mar 17;352:i1174.
Sangha, P., Weeks, R., Miller, E., Sedoc, J., Lacey, H., Liang, C., & Agarwal, S. (2025). Do we message with empowerment, empathy, or collectivity? A social media campaign microtargeting young Americans to encourage engagement with a bilingual COVID-19 chatbot. Journal of Social Marketing.
Kan, L., Shimada, Y., Hussen, A. M., Kiyomoto, A. S., Pandya, S., Mechael, P., ... & Agarwal, S. (2025). Associations between digital maturity in health and primary health care performance, 109 countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 103(10), 592.