Mobile Apps Leveraged in the COVID-19 Pandemic in East and South-East Asia: Review and Content Analysis

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic increased attention to digital tools to support governmental public health policies in East and South-East Asia. Mobile apps related to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to emerge and evolve with a wide variety of characteristics and functions. However, there is a paucity of studies evaluating such apps in this region, with most of the available studies conducted in the early days of the pandemic. Objective This study aimed to examine free apps developed or supported by governments in the East and South-East Asian region and highlight their key characteristics and functions. We also sought to interpret how the release dates of these apps were related to the commencement dates of other COVID-19 public health policies. Methods We systematically searched for apps in Apple App Store and Google Play Store and analyzed the contents of eligible apps. Mobile apps released or updated with COVID-19–related functions between March 1 and May 7, 2021, in Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, China (mainland), Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines were included. The CoronaNet Research Project database was also examined to determine the timeline of public health policy commencement dates in relation to the release dates of the included apps. We assessed each app’s official website, media reports, and literature through content analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize relevant information gathered from the mobile apps using RStudio. Results Of the 1943 mobile apps initially identified, 46 were eligible, with almost 70% of the apps being intended for the general public. Most apps were from Vietnam (n=9, 20%), followed by Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand (n=6 each, 13%). Of note, most apps for quarantine monitoring (n=6, 13%) were mandatory for the target users or a population subset. The most common function was health monitoring (32/46, 70%), followed by raising public health awareness (19/46, 41%) through education and information dissemination. Other functions included monitoring quarantine (12/46, 26%), providing health resources (12/46, 26%). COVID-19 vaccination management functions began to appear in parallel with vaccine rollout (7/46, 15%). Regarding the timing of the introduction of mobile solutions, the majority of mobile apps emerged close to the commencement dates of other public health policies in the early stages of the pandemic between March and April 2020. Conclusions In East and South-East Asia, most governments used mobile health apps as adjuncts to public health measures for tracking COVID-19 cases and delivering credible information. In addition, these apps have evolved by expanding their functions for COVID-19 vaccination.

COVID-19 Mobile Health Apps: An Overview of Mobile Applications in Indonesia

“…Users also reported that they could not gather comprehensive output about patient history from the apps. These also confirm previous findings in a previous systematic review in East and South-East Asia ( 35 ). The review also found that the key feature to suppress coronavirus spread, contact tracing, was unavailable in most apps.…”

“…Despite that, a few apps are used to educate or train patients, families, and support staff. This finding corroborates a previous review of COVID-19 apps in East and South-East Asia and highlights the primary function of COVID-19 mHealth apps in most countries in the region for dissemination purposes ( 35 ). While interactive services and targeted client communication are crucial ( 11 ), most apps were still not designed for interactive engagement with users.…”

“…These findings support evidence of previous mHealth related COVID-19 investigations in the country that data protection and security are a big concern as most of the apps have low-security protection technology ( 37 , 38 ). The threat to privacy and personal data was also addressed in prior mHealth related COVID-19 evaluation in East and South-East Asia ( 11 , 35 , 39 ).…”

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the epidemiology of STDs in China: based on the GM (1,1) model

“…A better management with special consideration must be given to patients with STDs, such as against discrimination on STDs, encourage self-testing and online medical care, offer necessary remote consultation and medical support, express delivery drugs and special medical pass when lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence has shown that mobile health (mHealth) in mobile apps has been used to enable health care providers to reach out to vulnerable individuals, to provide counselling, health-related education, and treatment [ 35 ]. As shown in a study by Pant Pai et al [ 36 ], an unsupervised HIV self-testing strategy using an internet-based mHealth provided counselling and treatment among patients testing positive in South Africa.…”

Preferences in the Intention to Download a COVID Tracing App: A Discrete Choice Experiment Study in the Netherlands and Turkey

“…COVID-19 Tracing Apps (CTAs) have been considered as an (cost-)effective mitigation strategy, by informing people as soon as possible when they have been in close contact with an infected person (Ming et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2021). Nonetheless, the actual adoption and usage of mobile health apps is rather low and lagging behind its promises (Walrave et al, 2020).…”