JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Pulmonary hypertension (PH), is a chronic and complex condition, requiring consistent management and education. The widespread use of smartphones has opened possibilities for mobile health apps to support both patients and healthcare professionals in monitoring and managing PH more effectively.

The use of wearable sensors is being explored as a challenging way to accurately identify smoking behaviors by measuring physiological and environmental factors in real-life settings. Although they hold potential benefits for aiding smoking cessation, no single wearable device currently achieves high accuracy in detecting smoking events. Furthermore, it is crucial to emphasize that this area of study is dynamic and requires ongoing updates.

Despite the growing availability of smoking cessation apps, low engagement and cessation rates have remained a significant challenge. To address this issue, we used a user-centered design to iteratively develop a mobile app (MO) to provide comprehensive, tailored, and evidence-based content to support smokers in their quitting journey.

Obesity is a rapidly increasing health problem in China, causing massive economic and health losses annually. Many techniques have emerged to help people with obesity better adhere to intervention programs and achieve their weight loss goals, including food replacement and internet-delivered weight loss consultations. Most studies on weight loss interventions mainly focused on the change in body weight or body mass index; however, body fat, especially visceral fat mass, is considered the main pathogenic factor in obesity. In China, more reliable evidence is required on this topic. Moreover, it is unclear whether an integrated weight loss program combining food replacement products, mobile app-based platforms, and daily body composition monitoring using a wireless scale is useful and practical in China.

Effective management of non-communicable diseases requires ongoing coordination and monitoring, often facilitated by e-health technologies such as mobile health (mHealth) applications. The end-user Mobile Application Rating Scale (uMARS) is a valuable tool for assessing the quality of mHealth apps from a user perspective. However, the lack of a French version limits its use in French-speaking countries, where mHealth app evaluation and regulation remain insufficiently addressed although the growing number of applications and high interest in their role in healthcare.

Background: Although at the base of the pyramid-shaped organization of the Rwandan health system, Community Health Workers (CHWs) are central to the community-based management of disease outbreaks.

Smartphone-based monitoring in natural settings provides opportunities to monitor mental health behaviors, including suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB). To date, most STB research using smartphones has primarily relied on collecting so-called "active" data, requiring participants to engage by completing surveys. Data collected passively from smartphone sensors and logs may offer an objectively measured representation of an individual's behavior, including smartphone screen time.

SMS text messaging- and internet-based self-reporting systems can supplement existing vaccine safety surveillance systems, but real-world participation patterns have not been assessed at scale.

This paper proposes an approach to assess digital health readiness in clinical settings to understand how prepared, experienced, and equipped individual people are to participate in digital health activities. Existing digital health literacy and telehealth prediction tools exist but do not assess technological aptitude for particular tasks or incorporate available electronic health record data to improve efficiency and efficacy. As such, we propose a multidomain digital health readiness assessment that incorporates a person’s stated goals and motivations for use of digital health, a focused digital health literacy assessment, passively collected data from the electronic health record, and a focused aptitude assessment for critical skills needed to achieve a person’s goals. This combination of elements should allow for easy integration into clinical workflows and make the assessment as actionable as possible for health care providers and in-clinic digital health navigators. Digital health readiness profiles could be used to match individuals with support interventions to promote the use of digital tools like telehealth, mobile apps, and remote monitoring, especially for those who are motivated but do not have adequate experience. Moreover, while effective and holistic digital health readiness assessments could contribute to increased use and greater equity in digital health engagement, they must also be designed with inclusivity in mind to avoid worsening known disparities in digital health care.

Mobile apps represent accessible and cost-effective tools to improve nutrition and prevent chronic diseases. However, most of these apps have been characterized as having limited functionality, raising concerns about their effectiveness, acceptability, and efficacy.

Usability has been touted as one determiner of success of mobile health (mHealth) interventions. Multiple systematic reviews of usability assessment approaches for different mHealth solutions for physical rehabilitation are available. However, there is a lack of synthesis in this portion of the literature, which results in clinicians and developers devoting a significant amount of time and effort in analyzing and summarizing a large body of systematic reviews.

Mobile health apps can facilitate access to effective treatment and therapeutic information services. However, the real-world effectiveness of mobile apps for smoking cessation and their potential impact in everyday settings remain unclear.