JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Chronic disease and comorbid mental health problems disproportionately affect rural and underserved populations. Digital self-management programs are potentially scalable, but evaluations often focus on narrow outcomes.

Recovery after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is typically assessed with infrequent clinic-based evaluations that may not reflect patients’ everyday mobility. Smartphone inertial sensors enable scalable, repeated gait measurement in real-world settings, but the extent to which prompted walking tests reflect daily life walking during recovery is not well defined.

Prenatal depression and anxiety have emerged as pressing global public health challenges. In the digital era, excessive smartphone use may exert complex effects on maternal mental health. Prior research has predominantly focused on adolescents, whereas evidence among pregnant women, particularly regarding total weekly use and use during critical circadian windows, such as after waking and before bedtime, remains limited. Furthermore, the mediating role of sleep quality in these associations has yet to be systematically examined.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death worldwide, yet participation in cardiac rehabilitation (CR) remains suboptimal. Wrist-worn wearables may support fully remote or hybrid CR through activity monitoring and individualized feedback, but the effectiveness and consistency of benefits remain uncertain.

Mobile health (mHealth) apps have become important tools for HIV/AIDS management. Although the Mobile App Rating Scale and its user version are widely used, how different stakeholder groups combine quality dimensions into overall judgments remains unclear. Discrepancies between researcher and patient evaluations may affect app adoption and clinical effectiveness.

AI-based tools for oral cancer screening have shown promising performance in curated image datasets, but their performance in real-world mobile community screening workflows remains less clear.

Telemedicine has emerged as a critical strategy to address health care access gaps in hard-to-reach areas, particularly in resource-constrained settings. While telemedicine services have expanded across India, evidence on post-implementation experiences, specifically regarding the integration of portable diagnostic tools, and the assisting role of frontline health care workers, remains limited. Understanding these sociotechnical dynamics is essential for optimizing digital health interventions in remote areas.

Adolescents living with perinatally acquired HIV (PHIV) remain at risk of neurocognitive difficulties, yet access to valid neurocognitive tests is limited in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where most of this population resides. Tests that can be administered by nonspecialist personnel are culturally and linguistically appropriate for SSA’s diverse populations and are brief enough for routine use are needed to expand access, but few such tools exist.

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods can provide assessment of alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors when people are in their natural environments. An increasingly common EMA approach involves the use of passive sensors (eg, continuous sharing of Bluetooth and GPS cell phone data) to collect rich data and trigger alcohol assessment in specific contexts. While collecting real-time assessments allows researchers to explore contextual factors impacting alcohol use, there is a lack of research examining compliance rates to alcohol-related EMAs that use daily questions for study periods over 2 weeks. EMAs over longer periods allow researchers to assess meaningful changes over time and sample low-base-rate events. Further, there is limited research exploring how EMA compliance is influenced by individual-level factors (eg, privacy concerns and alcohol use). Identifying factors associated with compliance can help inform EMA protocol design.

Mobile mental health (MH) apps are increasingly promoted as tools for self-care. However, less is known about how users integrate them into everyday life and how they combine with other forms of support.

Digital health technologies (DHTs) offer opportunities to support poststroke self-management and rehabilitation, but their implementation may be hindered by mismatches between technological design, stakeholder needs, and care contexts. Synthesizing stakeholder perspectives can clarify implementation priorities and gaps in the evidence.

Gender-affirming voice training (GAVT) has reduced gender incongruence for transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals, but remains limited by cost and scarcity of specialized providers. Mobile health (mHealth) is a bridge to these access gaps; yet, few high-quality, clinically informed mHealth apps exist within voice clinical sciences.