Beyond the Hype: Mobile Technologies and Opportunities to Address Health Disparities

Hswen, Yulin; Viswanath, Kasisomayajula

doi:10.7309/jmtm.4.1.9

Cited by 17 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Mobile phone and mobile phone ownership are accelerating quickly among young people and the general population [ 17 ]. Mobile technologies offer opportunities to mitigate the increasing disparity of access to affordable and even free resources [ 18 , 19 ]. There is an estimated 100,000 health care-related mobile apps [ 20 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low Quality of Free Coaching Apps With Respect to the American College of Sports Medicine Guidelines: A Review of Current Mobile Apps

Modave¹,

Bian²,

Leavitt³

et al. 2015

JMIR mHealth uHealth

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BackgroundLow physical activity level is a significant contributor to chronic disease, weight dysregulation, and mortality. Nearly 70% of the American population is overweight, and 35% is obese. Obesity costs an estimated US$ 147 billion annually in health care, and as many as 95 million years of life. Although poor nutritional habits remain the major culprit, lack of physical activity significantly contributes to the obesity epidemic and related lifestyle diseases.ObjectiveOver the past 10 years, mobile devices have become ubiquitous, and there is an ever-increasing number of mobile apps that are being developed to facilitate physical activity, particularly for active people. However, no systematic assessment has been performed about their quality with respect to following the parameters of sound fitness principles and scientific evidence, or suitability for a variety of fitness levels. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap and assess the quality of mobile coaching apps on iOS mobile devices.MethodsA set of 30 popular mobile apps pertaining to physical activity programming was identified and reviewed on an iPhone device. These apps met the inclusion criteria and provided specific prescriptive fitness and exercise programming content. The content of these apps was compared against the current guidelines and fitness principles established by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). A weighted scoring method based on the recommendations of the ACSM was developed to generate subscores for quality of programming content for aerobic (0-6 scale), resistance (0-6 scale), and flexibility (0-2 scale) components using the frequency, intensity, time, and type (FITT) principle. An overall score (0-14 scale) was generated from the subscores to represent the overall quality of a fitness coaching app.ResultsOnly 3 apps scored above 50% on the aerobic component (mean 0.7514, SD 1.2150, maximum 4.1636), 4 scored above 50% on the resistance/strength component (mean 1.4525, SD 1.2101, maximum 4.1094), and no app scored above 50% on the flexibility component (mean 0.1118, SD 0.2679, maximum 0.9816). Finally, only 1 app had an overall score (64.3%) above 50% (mean 2.3158, SD 1.911, maximum 9.0072).ConclusionsThere are over 100,000 health-related apps. When looking at popular free apps related to physical activity, we observe that very few of them are evidence based, and respect the guidelines for aerobic activity, strength/resistance training, and flexibility, set forth by the ACSM. Users should exercise caution when adopting a new app for physical activity purposes. This study also clearly identifies a gap in evidence-based apps that can be used safely and effectively to start a physical routine program, develop fitness, and lose weight. App developers have an exciting opportunity to improve mobile coaching app quality by addressing these gaps.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low Quality of Free Coaching Apps With Respect to the American College of Sports Medicine Guidelines: A Review of Current Mobile Apps

Modave¹,

Bian²,

Leavitt³

et al. 2015

JMIR mHealth uHealth

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This result indicates that NODE does not interfere with the traditional DSME provided in the clinic by a nurse educator. Given the ubiquitous nature of mobile devices across the socio-economic status spectrum [8], and substantial evidence that mobile health can improve long term clinical outcomes [9] in particular among youth…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New-Onset Diabetes Educator to Educate Children and Their Caregivers About Diabetes at the Time of Diagnosis: Usability Study (Preprint)

Bernier¹,

Fedele²,

Guo³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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“…These novel technologies provide an easy way to collect health-related data and allow consumers to monitor their own health data. mHealth offers modalities that are easily accessible and low-cost to implement, permitting potential reach across socioeconomic gradients and into hard-to-reach populations [2]. The mHealth market was projected to reach US $23 billion in 2017 and it is estimated to grow more than 35% in the next 3 years [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficacy and Effectiveness of Mobile Health Technologies for Facilitating Physical Activity in Adolescents: Scoping Review

Lee

Chavez

Bian

et al. 2019

JMIR Mhealth Uhealth

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Background Increasing physical activity (PA) levels in adolescents aged 12 to 18 years is associated with prevention of unhealthy weight gain and improvement in cardiovascular fitness. The widespread availability of mobile health (mHealth) and wearable devices offers self-monitoring and motivational features for increasing PA levels and improving adherence to exercise programs. Objective The aim of this scoping review was to identify the efficacy or effectiveness of mHealth intervention strategies for facilitating PA among adolescents aged 12 to 18 years. Methods We conducted a systematic search for peer-reviewed studies published between 2008 and 2018 in the following electronic databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, PsychINFO, or SportDiscus. The search terms used included mHealth or “mobile health” or apps, “physical activity” or exercise, children or adolescents or teens or “young adults” or kids, and efficacy or effectiveness. Articles published outside of the date range (July 2008 to October 2018) and non-English articles were removed before abstract review. Three reviewers assessed all abstracts against the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Any uncertainties or differences in opinion were discussed as a group. The inclusion criteria were that the studies should (1) have an mHealth component, (2) target participants aged between 12 and 18 years, (3) have results on efficacy or effectiveness, and (4) assess PA-related outcomes. Reviews, abstracts only, protocols without results, and short message service text messaging–only interventions were excluded. We also extracted potentially relevant papers from reviews. At least 2 reviewers examined all full articles for fit with the criteria and extracted data for analysis. Data extracted from selected studies included study population, study type, components of PA intervention, and PA outcome results. Results Overall, 126 articles were initially identified. Reviewers pulled 18 additional articles from excluded review papers. Only 18 articles were passed onto full review, and 16 were kept for analysis. The included studies differed in the sizes of the study populations (11-607 participants), locations of the study sites (7 countries), study setting, and study design. Overall, 5 mHealth intervention categories were identified: website, website+wearable, app, wearable+app, and website+wearable+app. The most common measures reported were subjective weekly PA (4/13) and objective daily moderate-to-vigorous PA (5/13) of the 19 different PA outcomes assessed. Furthermore, 5 of 13 studies with a control or comparison group showed a significant improvement in PA outcomes between the intervention group and the control or comparison group. Of those 5 studies, 3 permitted isolation of mHealth intervention components in the analysis. Conclusions PA outcomes for adolescents improved over time through mHealth intervention use; however, the lack of consi...

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Beyond the Hype: Mobile Technologies and Opportunities to Address Health Disparities

Cited by 17 publications

References 14 publications

Low Quality of Free Coaching Apps With Respect to the American College of Sports Medicine Guidelines: A Review of Current Mobile Apps

Low Quality of Free Coaching Apps With Respect to the American College of Sports Medicine Guidelines: A Review of Current Mobile Apps

New-Onset Diabetes Educator to Educate Children and Their Caregivers About Diabetes at the Time of Diagnosis: Usability Study (Preprint)

Efficacy and Effectiveness of Mobile Health Technologies for Facilitating Physical Activity in Adolescents: Scoping Review

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