JMIR mHealth and uHealth

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) continue to be the leading cause of global morbidity and mortality. To reduce risk of CVD development and better manage them, an increasing number of individuals are adopting mobile health applications (apps) and wearable devices (wearables). These technologies provide critical insights into heart health and fitness, supporting users to monitor their lifestyle behaviours and adhere to preventative medication.

The menopause transition is a significant life milestone that often brings physical and mental challenges, deeply impacting quality of life and work performance. Among menopause-related conditions, pelvic floor dysfunctions (PFDs) affect ~40-50% of postmenopausal women, including urinary or fecal incontinence, genito-pelvic pain, and pelvic organ prolapse. While pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) is the primary treatment, access and adherence barriers leave many untreated, advocating for new care delivery models.

Accessible mental health care, delivered via mobile apps or web-based services, may be essential for military members, public safety personnel (PSP), and veterans, as they report numerous barriers to seeking in-person care and are at an increased risk for a number of psychological disorders.

Tools for measuring clinical disability status in people with multiple sclerosis (MS) are limited. Accelerometry objectively assesses physical activity and circadian rhythmicity profiles in the real-world environment and may potentially distinguish levels of disability in MS.

Mobile health (mHealth) apps provide innovative solutions for improving treatment adherence, facilitating lifestyle modifications, and optimizing blood pressure control in patients with hypertension. Despite their potential benefits, the adoption and recommendation of mHealth apps by physicians in Germany remain limited. This reluctance may be due to a lack of understanding of the factors influencing physicians’ willingness to incorporate these digital tools into routine clinical practice. Understanding these factors is crucial for fostering greater integration of mHealth apps in hypertension care.

Numerous mobile apps have been developed for patients with cancer. However, there is still no comprehensive app for patients with breast cancer that integrates evidence-based medical information, psychological support, and schedule management through a multidisciplinary medical approach.

Blockchain technology has capabilities that can transform how sensitive personal health data are safeguarded, shared, and accessed in digital health research. Women’s health data are considered especially sensitive, given the privacy and safety risks associated with their unauthorized disclosure. These risks may affect research participation. Using a privacy-by-design approach, we developed 2 app-based women’s health research study prototypes for user evaluation and assessed how blockchain may impact participation.

Smoking cessation applications (Apps) are increasingly being used to assist smokers in quitting. In China, whether behavioral science-based techniques are being incorporated into smoking cessation Apps remains unknown.

Consumer-grade wearables allow researchers to capture a representative picture of human behavior in the real world over extended periods. However, maintaining users’ engagement remains a challenge and can lead to a decrease in compliance (e.g., wear time in the context of wearable sensors) over time (e.g., “wearables’ abandonment”).

Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Novel interventions are needed to improve smoking cessation rates. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for cessation address tobacco use by increasing awareness of the automatic nature of smoking and related behaviors (eg, reactivity to triggers for smoking) from a nonjudgmental stance. Delivering MBIs for smoking cessation via innovative technologies allows for flexibility in the timing of intervention delivery, which has the potential to improve the efficacy of cessation interventions. Research shows MBIs target key mechanisms in the smoking cessation process and can be used to minimize drivers of smoking lapse.

Nearly one third of adults in the United States will meet criteria for alcohol use disorder (AUD) in their lifetime, yet fewer than ten percent of individuals who meet for AUD criteria will receive treatment for it. Mobile Health (mHealth) applications have been suggested as a potential mechanism for closing this treatment gap, yet there is a wide variety of quality and integrity within these apps, leading to potential harms to users.

The rapidly emerging integration of both technological applications and environmental factors in physical activity (PA) interventions among older adults highlights the need for an overarching investigation.