This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Mobile phone apps have been leveraged to combat the spread of COVID-19. However, little is known about these technologies’ characteristics, technical features, and various applications in health care when responding to this public health crisis. The lack of understanding has led developers and governments to make poor choices about apps’ designs, which resulted in creating less useful apps that are overall less appealing to consumers due to their technical flaws.
This review aims to identify, analyze, and categorize health apps related to COVID-19 that are currently available for consumers in app stores; in particular, it focuses on exploring their key technical features and classifying the purposes that these apps were designed to serve.
A review of health apps was conducted using the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. The Apple Store and Google Play were searched between April 20 and September 11, 2020. An app was included if it was dedicated for this disease and was listed under the health and medical categories in these app stores. The descriptions of these apps were extracted from the apps’ web pages and thematically analyzed via open coding to identify both their key technical features and overall purpose. The characteristics of the included apps were summarized and presented with descriptive statistics.
Of the 298 health apps that were initially retrieved, 115 met the inclusion criteria. A total of 29 technical features were found in our sample of apps, which were then categorized into five key purposes of apps related to COVID-19. A total of 77 (67%) apps were developed by governments or national authorities and for the purpose of promoting users to track their personal health (9/29, 31%). Other purposes included raising awareness on how to combat COVID-19 (8/29, 27%), managing exposure to COVID-19 (6/29, 20%), monitoring health by health care professionals (5/29, 17%), and conducting research studies (1/29, 3.5%).
This study provides an overview and taxonomy of the health apps currently available in the market to combat COVID-19 based on their differences in basic technical features and purpose. As most of the apps were provided by governments or national authorities, it indicates the essential role these apps have as tools in public health crisis management. By involving most of the population in self-tracking their personal health and providing them with the technology to self-assess, the role of these apps is deemed to be a key driver for a participatory approach to curtail the spread of COVID-19. Further effort is required from researchers to evaluate these apps’ effectiveness and from governmental organizations to increase public awareness of these digital solutions.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a global health movement developed with countrywide campaigns providing health education. This information was widespread to educate the public on the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 virus and how to best protect themselves. These campaigns were filled with a series of prevention protocols and control interventions to contain COVID-19, such as social distancing, keeping infected individuals isolated, self-isolating in homes or hotels after coming into contact with someone who has tested positive, and restricting travel [
During the COVID-19 pandemic, health mobile phone apps have been widely used for supporting these campaigns’ missions, to assist in raising awareness on how the population may protect itself, and for encouraging adherence to those various precaution protocols [
In addition, health apps are not only limited to simply providing information about COVID-19 but also used to facilitate data-driven disease surveillance, screening, triage, diagnosis, and monitoring by governments or health officials, health care professionals, and health organizations [
At the individual level, as these health apps’ popularity rises, the opportunity has increased for consumers and patients to self-manage both their risk of exposure and symptom progression [
Furthermore, the importance of health apps related to COVID-19 arises from their capabilities to allow consumers to feel safe and informed in making decisions regarding their health. For instance, an app developed by the University of California, San Francisco [
To ensure that apps such as these can meet consumers’ needs and preferences, it is imperative that app developers understand the various usages of these technologies and their technical features [
From April 20, 2020, to September 11, 2020, the authors explored the Apple Store and Google Play. The following search strings were used to find apps dedicated for COVID-19 that were listed under the health and medical categories: COVID19, COVID, COVID-19, corona, coronavirus, corona triage, corona symptoms, SARS-CoV-2, and respiratory diseases. Additionally, the authors searched current news articles and Google search engine results to find apps related to COVID-19 that may not have otherwise been available in the authors’ regional app store.
The app review was conducted with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines [
The inclusion and exclusion criteria are illustrated in
During the eligibility assessment round, the titles, descriptions, and keywords of identified apps were screened. Health apps that were available to the public at app stores were included. In this round, an app was excluded if it was removed from an app store by its developer during our specified search period, even if it was originally available at the beginning of this period. Their removal indicated that these apps were no longer available to consumers and were, hence, excluded from the sample.
An app was also excluded if it was only dedicated to respiratory or infectious diseases other than COVID-19, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or asthma without any reference to COVID-19. Examples of these apps were the Clean Your Lungs app [
Furthermore, no restrictions were made regarding the app’s language, pricing, store location or country of origin, developer type, or accessibility measures for gaining access to its content, such as requirement of national identification codes, local country phone numbers, or research study codes. Additionally, no restrictions were imposed in terms of the type of app users. Examples of these health apps included Spectrum [
The inclusion and exclusion criteria of apps are presented based on a framework developed by Ramakrishnan et al [
Levels of consideration | Framework questions | Inclusion criteria | Exclusion criteria |
App origin | Where does the app come from? Who is the developer, and what is the country of origin? | Health apps that were available at app stores during our search period | No restrictions were made on the country of origin, app’s language, or developer type. |
App accessibility | On what platforms is the app available? How much does it cost, and what accessibility measures are in place for a user? | Health apps that were available in the Apple Store and Google Play | No restrictions were made on the app’s pricing or other accessibility measures for gaining access to the app’s content such as requirement of national identification codes, local country phone numbers, or research study codes. |
App features | What features does the app offer, and what kind of information is it providing around COVID-19? | Health apps that were related to combating COVID-19 | Health apps were excluded if they were only dedicated to respiratory or infectious diseases other than COVID-19, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome or asthma without any reference to COVID-19. |
Privacy and security | Are data use and security measures specified? What kind of data are collected or shared? | Health apps that were able to collect or share data | No restrictions were made on the privacy and security measures (eg, consent forms or privacy compliance standards) or kind of data collected or shared (eg, personal information or users’ locations). |
Clinical integration | For whom is it intended: patients, self-help, or essential workers? | Health apps that were available to the public | No restrictions were made on the app’s intended users. |
Each app’s web page in both the Apple Store and Google Play was visited. Data on each app was extracted and collected as follows: the app’s name, release date or version date when features related to COVID-19 were added, the country of origin, author or developer name, technical features, and source (link to the app’s web page). This information is summarized and presented in
The apps’ technical features were identified by performing open coding. A qualitative data analysis application (ie, Dedoose Version 8.3.35; SocioCultural Research Consultants, LLC) was used at this stage. The apps’ descriptions were first stored in a Word (Microsoft Corporation) document, which was then imported into Dedoose. Excerpts about technical features were highlighted and given a title. The code title was drawn from the excerpts’ content. For example, the excerpt “users can also engage in real-time chat with the chat feature” was placed under the title Chatbot Feature.
After this, the generated codes about the apps’ technical features were grouped into overarching categories or dimensions. Each dimension represented a different purpose that an app could serve. To identify and validate the purposes of these apps, codes and dimensions were compared iteratively to analyze the similarities in their descriptions within a category [
Our approach to defining purposes of apps related to COVID-19.
A total of 298 apps were identified through systematic searches in the Apple Store (n=178) and Google Play (n=120). Screening the apps’ titles and descriptions resulted in removing the following apps: 34 apps that were duplicated, 111 apps that were related to other respiratory diseases (n=56 related to SARS and n=55 related to asthma), and 38 apps that were no longer available in the app stores. After removing duplicate and irrelevant apps, 106 apps from the Apple Store and 9 from Google Play were included and further analyzed.
Flowchart of our search strategy and app selection process.
The characteristics of included apps along with examples of each are presented in
Summary of apps’ characteristics.
Characteristics | Apps (N=115), n (%) | Selected app example | |
|
|||
iOS | 106 (92.17) | TraceCovid | |
Android | 9 (7.82) | Tawakkalna KSAa | |
|
|||
Free | 114 (99.13) | Stop Covid19 | |
Not free | 1 (0.87) | PreMedicus | |
|
|||
Government or national authority | 77 (66.95) | Covid-19 Armenia | |
Company | 25 (21.73) | Covive | |
Nonprofit organization or agency | 5 (4.35) | WHOb Info | |
Hospital | 4 (3.48) | Trecovid19 | |
University or research institute/center | 4 (3.48) | Covid Watcher | |
|
|||
US | 28 (24.35) | CovidWise | |
India | 5 (4.35) | AarogyaSetu | |
Italy | 4 (3.48) | Trecovid19 | |
KSA | 4 (3.48) | Tabaud | |
Mexico | 4 (3.48) | Plan Jalisco Covid-19 | |
Spain | 4 (3.48) | GVA CoronVirus | |
Vietnam | 4 (3.48) | Covid-19 Vietnam | |
Global | 4 (3.48) | Covive | |
Canada | 3 (2.61) | Canada Covid-19 | |
Australia | 3 (2.61) | MyAus Covid-19 | |
France | 3 (2.61) | Covidom Patient | |
Netherlands | 3 (2.61) | COVID-19 Medisch Dossier | |
UAE | 3 (2.61) | TraceCovid | |
Malaysia | 2 (1.74) | MyTrace | |
Ireland | 2 (1.74) | PatientMpower for COVID-19 | |
South Korea | 2 (1.74) | Self-Quarantine app | |
UK | 2 (1.74) | NHS24 Covid-19 | |
Other | 35 (30.43) | N/Ac |
aKSA: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
bWHO: World Health Organization.
cN/A: not applicable.
A total of 51 countries were included in this review. Most of the health apps (n=28, 24%) were from the United States, and 5 apps came from India. The following countries each created 4 apps: Italy, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Spain, and Vietnam. The following countries each made 3 apps: Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and the United Arab Emirates. The following countries each developed 2 apps: Malaysia, Ireland, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. There were 4 apps designed for global users, and the rest came from other countries (n=35; ie, Armenia, Austria, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Columbia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Lativa, Mali, Morocco, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Fiji, Romania, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, and Uruguay).
After conducting the open coding of 115 apps’ descriptions, 258 extracted excerpts were grouped into 29 technical features.
The most common technical feature was
The second most common technical feature in our review was
The third most common technical feature was
The fourth most common technical feature was
The fifth most common technical feature was
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical features
The technical features
The technical feature
The technical feature
The technical feature
Finally, the least common technical features in this review, each offered in only 1 app, were: checklists of surfaces that required disinfection, taking photos of surfaces, making medical appointments, medical check-up tracking (eg, diagnosis time or submission of diagnosis) during self-quarantine, medical report generators, medication tracking and reminders, mood tracking and mental status (eg, coping with stress), movement permits (eg, during curfew), results of a COVID-19 laboratory test, and using wearable devices for symptom tracking such as pulse oximeters for tracking oxygen saturation in the blood.
Summary of the apps’ technical features with examples.
Technical features (n=29) | Apps (N=115), n (%) | Selected example of app |
Basic health info and advice or FAQsa | 42 (36.52) | Covid-19 Czechia |
Contact tracing | 32 (27.83) | TraceCovid |
Alert contacts | 30 (26.08) | Tabaud |
Gadget of self-assessment | 20 (17.39) | Covive |
Live statistics and rolling updates | 19 (16.52) | NCOVI |
Latest news | 16 (13.91) | CDCb |
Symptoms tracker | 16 (13.91) | Corona Care |
Info about health services and care lines | 11 (9.57) | CoronApp-Colombia |
Map | 10 (8.69) | Corona Map |
Health or travel declaration | 8 (6.96) | Covid-19 Vietnam |
Location monitoring | 7 (6.08) | Private Kit: Safe Paths |
Sharing data or story with others | 7 (6.08) | Corona FACTS |
Remote monitoring | 6 (5.21) | Covidom Patient |
Virtual medical consultation | 6 (5.21) | Laziodr Covid |
Helpline | 6 (5.50) | Covid-19 UAE |
Chatbot | 5 (4.35) | HealthLynked COVID-19 |
Distance detection | 3 (2.61) | VírusRadar |
Recruitment of volunteers | 2 (1.74) | Covid Radar |
List of products for combating COVID-19 | 2 (1.74) | NIOSHc PPEd Tracker |
Checklist of disinfected surfaces | 1 (0.87) | Disinfection Checklist |
Making medical appointments | 1 (0.87) | GVA CoronVirus |
Medical check-up tracking | 1 (0.87) | Self-Quarantine app |
Medical report generator | 1 (0.87) | Premedicus |
Medication tracking and reminders | 1 (0.87) | Patientsphere for Covid19 |
Mood tracking and mental status | 1 (0.87) | Covid Coach |
Movement permits | 1 (0.87) | Tawakkalna KSAe |
Results of COVID-19 laboratory test | 1 (0.87) | Tatamman |
Taking photos of surfaces | 1 (0.87) | Disinfection Checklist |
Wearable devices for symptom tracking | 1 (0.87) | PatientMpower for COVID-19 |
aFAQ: frequently asked question.
bCDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
cNIOSH: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
dPPE: personal protective equipment.
eKSA: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The identified technical features (n=29) were then analyzed and organized into five dimensions that represented purposes of these health apps. This led to the development of our taxonomy for health apps related to COVID-19, as shown in
Taxonomy of COVID-19 apps’ purposes. FAQ: frequently asked questions.
For tracking personal health, a total of 9 (31%) technical features out of 29 were found relevant, as the data generated from these apps helped their users look after their health. These technical features were gadgets of self-assessment used as an initial triage of possible infection, symptom trackers to check oneself for COVID-19 symptoms on a daily basis, medication trackers and reminders, mood trackers, distance detectors to maintain a safe distance from others, diagnosis recorders used during self-quarantine, integrated cameras for taking photos of surfaces that have been disinfected, checklists of surfaces that have to be disinfected for tracking hygiene practices, and wearable devices for tracking symptoms.
For raising awareness about COVID-19, 8 (28%) technical features out of 29 were categorized under this dimension, as these apps were concerned with providing various data and information to help users stay informed about this disease. These technical features included providing basic health information and advice or FAQs, presenting live statistics and rolling updates, showing the latest news, offering information about health services and care lines, providing interactive maps of active cases and nearby medical facilities to help users learn about this information, chatbots to answer the user’s questions, incorporating lists of products needed for combating COVID-19 to learn about this important precaution, and allowing users to share data and stories with others such as family members and doctors to inform them about their health status and the most current health care information and practice.
For managing exposure to COVID-19, 6 (21%) technical features were classified under this dimension, as these apps help users avoid being exposed to this virus. These features were contact tracing, alerting users who were within close proximity of someone who had tested positive for the virus, reporting suspected cases and declaring travel after arrival, granting movement permits during curfews, monitoring the location of consenting users to further understand trends of COVID-19 within various communities, and tools for sharing results of certified COVID-19 examinations with users.
For health monitoring, 5 (17%) technical features were placed under this dimension, as these apps help users to seek medical assistance from their health care professionals. These features were remote monitoring by health care professionals, virtual medical consultations with clinicians via video or audio calls, medical report generators, tools for making appointments to visit health centers, and helplines to obtain necessary medical help.
Finally, for conducting research studies, many features such as symptoms tracker, distance detector, and self-assessment gadgets enabled this dimension, but only 1 (3%) technical feature uniquely supported it. This feature was intended to enable researchers to recruit volunteers to take part in COVID-19–related studies and clinical research across countries.
This app review shows that the health apps related to COVID-19 vary in terms of their developer type, basic technical features, and purposes of use to combat COVID-19. Regarding the developer types, this review reveals the high number of apps developed by governments or national authorities to fight this infectious disease. In comparison, apps related to noncommunicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension are mostly developed by nongovernmental entities such as health care providers and hospitals [
The most common technical features in this review focused on offering basic health information and advice on COVID-19 followed by contact tracing. However, the authors noticed that over the review period the number of health apps related to contact tracing was increasing. For example, health apps released at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (ie, February, March, April, and May 2020) tended to be concerned with raising awareness more than other purposes. Apps released in June, July, August, and early September 2020 tended to offer COVID-19 exposure notifications more than any other purpose (see
This review also observed the increase in AI-based technical features for providing customized support to fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. For example, AI-enabled health education agents are offered through chatbots. Although 4 apps included in this review had chatbots within their technical features, the number of chatbot apps and their popularity are expected to increase [
Moreover, some researchers are concerned about future lasting effects of the virus, which can be somewhat mitigated with currently available app technology [
Regarding the purposes of apps, tracking personal health and raising awareness were dominant in this review and in other relevant reviews of COVID-19 apps [
Additionally, in the 51 countries that are presented in this review, informing the community on how to mitigate their exposure to COVID-19 has been provided by digital health technologies [
This study provides a holistic review of the technical features that are common in health apps related to COVID-19 and identifies the most used ones for various purposes as shown in
For governments and health officials, our review shows not only that health apps can support several different methods in which to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 but also that its information can be accessed rapidly and inexpensively [
For researchers in public health and medical informatics, there is enormous potential for future research and app-based development with regard to how mobile apps have so far been used to combat COVID-19, as shown in this review, and will ideally be used in the future [
Lastly, for average consumers, as health apps related to COVID-19 are low-cost and publicly available resources, this study provides a holistic reference of apps that are currently available in the market across 51 countries.
As countries who are actively collecting data are better equipped to make decisions on how to best combat COVID-19, it is recommended to investigate and find approaches for encouraging as many people as possible to use these apps [
Self-monitoring–related apps have played a large role in health care provision, treating patients without being overwhelmed by in-person visits and enabling treatment providers and patients to use symptom progression tracking in real time [
Additionally, although daily or even more frequent reminders of medication adherence, filling out self-assessments, and recommendations to self-quarantine may be effective for some users, others need more specialty care [
Furthermore, one of the most pressing questions in clinical treatment and research is how to prevent the feelings of social isolation that quickly developed in a large portion of the population—particularly in older adult and immunocompromised populations [
Lastly, few health apps were used for conducting research studies. In this review, this was found to be the overall least common purpose of health apps related to COVID-19. Obtaining informative data on the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus from consumers is essential for public health specialists and medical researchers to successfully carry out their studies, which will inform future understanding of the infection and risk factors for adverse outcomes, characterize the virus transmission patterns, identify high-risk patients, and eventually assist clinicians in fighting COVID-19 [
This review has its own limitations. Our search for health apps was limited to the major app stores Apple Store and Google Play. However, these stores are the largest global platforms for app distribution, with 4.41 million apps as of May 2020, which accounted for about 80% of apps in the market [
This study provides an overview and taxonomy of the health apps currently available in the market to combat COVID-19 based on their differences in terms of basic technical features and purposes of use. The analysis of 115 health apps related to COVID-19 led to extracting 258 excerpts that were grouped into 29 technical features as shown in
Summary of the apps included in the review.
The occurrence of excerpts or technical features in each app.
artificial intelligence
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
frequently asked questions
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews
Really Simple Syndication
severe acute respiratory syndrome
Secure Tracing Identifier
World Health Organization
The authors are grateful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Jazan University for funding this study (Project Cov19-12). We also would like to thank Ms Halah Abkar Zain, the lecturer at Jazan University, for her assistance during the processes of searching for apps and extracting excerpts related to the platform type, app name, pricing, name of the developer or author, country of origin, and technical features.
MA conceived the study and acquired funding. MA designed the study, reviewed the apps, analyzed and interpreted the data, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript including the creation of all tables, figures, and multimedia appendixes. AG assisted in shaping the literature review with input from MA. Both authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
None declared.