While digital health or mHealth applications (apps) have become accessible resources for the support of personal health, the privacy and security of users' data have been the subject of concern and controversy. As large numbers of mHealth apps are created and are increasingly widely used by people with various health conditions, it is crucial to have clear and valid methods for evaluating the data practices within them. Recent regulatory initiatives such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have had the effect of raising awareness and establishing a minimal set of expectations. However, they do not in themselves address the issue of the development of systems which meet privacy and security requirements. There is a growing body of research on evaluation techniques and frameworks to support the assessment of the privacy and security of health apps, and guidelines to support their design. However, it can be challenging to navigate this space and choose appropriate techniques for a given context. Addressing this issue, this paper examines the recent literature on security and privacy of m-Health applications, using a scoping review methodology. It analyses data security and privacy evaluation techniques and frameworks that have been proposed for mHealth applications, as well as relevant research-based design recommendations. This work consolidates recent research on the topic to support researchers, app designers, end users, and healthcare professionals in designing, evaluating, recommending and adopting mHealth applications.

The distinct abilities of older adults to interact with touchscreen devices have motivated a wide range of contributions in the form of design guidelines, which aim at informing the design for the aging population. However, despite the growing effort by the research community, many challenges still remain in translating these research findings into actionable design guidelines, with reports hinting scant adoption or implementation issues, which ultimately hurt the development of more accessible interactive systems. In this systematic literature review, we look at the research-derived design guidelines that set the foundation for design guideline compilations and standards, analyzing the aforementioned issues from the perspective of experts trying to discover, classify, and evaluate the work on the area of touchscreen design guidelines for older adults. The review analyses 52 research articles resulting in 434 research-derived design guidelines for touchscreen applications. These guidelines are analyzed using a taxonomy that considered the older adults ability evolution and the design aspects that are the target of the recommendations. The results point to the use of different definition of older adults, which go as early as 55+, with the design of displays and interaction styles to accommodate to vision and dexterity declines as the most prominent areas of research. However, proposed guidelines and recommendations were validated in only 15% of articles analyzed. The analysis also revealed that identifying guidelines and characterizing their focus in terms of ability declines and design aspects addressed is a demanding activity and prone to error, given the quality of reporting and details offered in research articles.INDEX TERMS Information and communication technology, accessibility, ageing, older adults, systematic literature review.

This study explores patients’ perspectives on sharing their personal health data, which is traditionally shared through discussions with peers and relatives. However, other possibilities for sharing have emerged through the introduction of online services such as Patient Accessible Electronic Health Records (PAEHR). In this article, we investigate strategies that patients adopt in sharing their PAEHR. Data were collected through a survey with 2587 patients and through 15 semi-structured interviews with cancer patients. Results show that surprisingly few patients share their information, and that older patients and patients with lower educational levels share more frequently. A large majority of patients trust the security of the system when sharing despite the high sensitivity of health information. Finally, we discuss the design implications addressing identified problems when sharing PAEHR, as well as security and privacy issues connected to sharing.

To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, countries around the world have implemented a range of measures and virus containment strategies, including digital contact-tracing (DCT) in the form of smartphone apps. While early studies showed a high level of acceptability of such technologies, the adoption rates vary greatly between countries after contact-tracing apps became available to download. This cross-national user survey (n=871) aims to explore public attitudes and factors that affect user acceptability and adoption of contact-tracing apps in the USA, UK, and the Republic of Ireland, which employ similar underlying technology, but have uneven adoption rates. The results indicate interactions between public trust in actors and institutions communicating COVID-related information and releasing such technologies and installation decisions. Beyond the immediate case of contact tracing, our findings hold implications for the deployment and communicative framing of technology for public health and the public good and inform design of crisis response public health information systems.