Academic literature on the topic 'HEALTH-TRACKING APPS'

The use of game-like elements is become increasingly popular in the context of fitness and health apps. While such “gamified” apps hold great potential in motivating people to improve their health, they also come with a “darker side”. Recent work suggests that these gamified health apps raise a number of ethical challenges that, if left unaddressed, are not only morally problematic but also have adverse effects on user health and engagement with the apps. However, studies highlighting the ethical challenges of gamification have also met with criticism, indicating that they fall short of providing guidance to practitioners. In avoiding this mistake, this paper seeks to advance the goal of facilitating a practice-relevant guide for designers of gamified health apps to address ethical issues raised by use of such apps. More specifically, the paper seeks to achieve two major aims: (a) to propose a revised practice-relevant theoretical framework that outlines the responsibilities of the designers of gamified health apps, and (b) to provide a landscape of the various ethical issues related to gamified health apps based on a systematic literature review of the empirical literature investigating adverse effects of such apps.

This study evaluates mobile apps using a theory-based evaluation framework to discover their applicability for patients at risk of gestational diabetes. This study assessed how well the existing mobile apps on the market meet the information and tracking needs of patients with gestational diabetes and evaluated the feasibility of how to integrate these apps into patient care. A search was conducted in the Apple iTunes and Google Play store for mobile apps that contained keywords related to the following concepts of nutrition: diet, tracking, diabetes, and pregnancy. Evaluation criteria were developed to assess the mobile apps on five dimensions. Overall, the apps scored well on education and information functions and scored poorly on engagement functions. There are few apps that provide comprehensive evidence-based educational content, tracking tools, and integration with electronic health records. This study demonstrates the need to develop apps that have comprehensive content, tracking tools, and ability to bidirectionally share data.

Background. The use of mobile apps for health and well-being has grown exponentially in the last decade, as such apps were reported to be ideal platforms for behavioral change and symptoms monitoring and management. Objective. This study aimed to systematically review period tracking applications available at Google Play and Apple App Stores and determine the presence, features, and quality of these smartphone apps. In addition, behavioral changes associated with the top 5 rated apps were assessed. Methods. This study used the Systematic Search Criteria through Google Play Store and iTunes Apple Store, using terms related to period tracking. Apps were scanned for matching the inclusion criteria and the included apps were assessed by two reviewers using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS), a tool that was developed for classifying and assessing the quality of mHealth apps. Results. Forty-nine apps met the inclusion criteria. Most of the apps enabled setting user goals, motivations, and interactivity, tracking multiple symptoms or mood changes, allowed notifications, and used graphs to illustrate the tracking result over a specific period of time. The majority of features and functions within these apps were offered for free, while some apps included limited in-app purchases or needed Internet connection to function. Certain apps were reported by participants to promote behavioral change and increase knowledge and awareness regarding monthly periods. Conclusions. Period tracking apps were easy to use and navigate and can hence be readily adopted into routine tracking and management of periods. However, most apps were not based on significant evidence and may need further development to support period-related symptom management.

A number of mobile health apps related to coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been developed, but research into app content analytics for effective surveillance and management is still in its preliminary stages. The present study aimed to identify the purpose and functions of the currently available COVID-19 apps using content analysis. The secondary aim was to propose directions for the future development of apps that aid infectious disease surveillance and control with a focus on enhancing the app content and quality. Prior to conducting an app search in the App Store and the Google Play Store, we reviewed previous studies on COVID-19 apps found in Google Scholar and PubMed to examine the main purposes of the apps. Using the five selected keywords based on the review, we searched the two app stores to retrieve eligible COVID-19 apps including those already addressed in the reviewed literature. We conducted descriptive and content analyses of the selected apps. We classified the purpose types of the COVID-19 apps into the following five categories: information provision, tracking, monitoring, mental health management, and engagement. We identified 890 apps from the review articles and the app stores: 47 apps met the selection criteria and were included in the content analysis. Among the selected apps, iOS apps outnumbered Android apps, 27 apps were government-developed, and most of the apps were created in the United States. The most common function for the iOS apps (63.6%) and Android apps (62.5%) was to provide COVID-19-related knowledge. The most common function among the tracking apps was to notify users of contact with infected people by the iOS apps (40.9%) and Android apps (37.5%). About 29.5% of the iOS apps and 25.0% of the Android apps were used to record symptoms and self-diagnose. Significantly fewer apps targeted mental health management and engagement. Six iOS apps (6/44, 13.6%) and four Android apps (4/24, 16.7%) provided behavioral guidelines about the pandemic. Two iOS apps (2/44, 4.5%) and two Android apps (2/24, 8.3%) featured communication functions. The present content analysis revealed that most of the apps provided unilateral information and contact tracing or location tracking. Several apps malfunctioned. Future research and development of COVID-19 apps or apps for other emerging infectious diseases should address the quality and functional improvements, which should begin with continuous monitoring and actions to mitigate any technical errors.

Pregnant women are increasingly using mobile apps as a source of supplemental information. These pregnancy-related mobile apps present women with contradictory risk recommendations without the medical research to support their claims. The content analysis describes a sample of the pregnancy-tracking mobile application environment open to pregnant mothers and uses the social amplification of risk framework. Within this framework, written recommendations and the presence or absence of corresponding citations on controversial topics in pregnancy were recorded and risk was coded as received contradictory information. Of the 48 pregnancy-tracking mobile apps downloaded, 11 (22.9%) were associated with either a seller or a developer with a medical background. Only 24 of 48 (50.0%) of the apps cited a source, such as a health professional agency or peer-reviewed research journal for health recommendations. In our results, we show a sampling of contradictory risk recommendations made by mobile apps that cite or do not cite their source for that recommendation on 8 controversial topics in pregnancy. Findings suggest providers treating pregnant women must be aware of the complex information environment and help them navigate the risk information they encounter on some of the most popular pregnancy-tracking mobile apps.

Digital self-tracking tools can be part of body work to measure, monitor, and optimise progress towards idealised versions of the self. Fitness and calorie trackers are obvious examples but menstrual tracking apps, which can track a large range of bodily ‘symptoms’, can also be part of body work. In this article, I present accounts of young people’s menstrual and fitness tracking experiences from existing literature, illustrating how both types of trackers can function as part of their users’ body work. I interweave these stories with an autoethnographic account of my own embodied experiences with and through menstrual and fitness tracking apps. I explore the ways in which health, beauty, and wellness can become enmeshed in self-tracking practices; how emotions, stress, and sleep can become personal problems to solve; how tracking tools can make body work feel more ‘real’; and the mutual but asymmetrical shaping of digital tracking tools and their users. Though there is an existing body of work on young people’s experiences of digital self-tracking tools more generally (particularly health and fitness tracking tools), young people’s use of menstrual tracking apps is a relatively understudied phenomenon to date. The themes identified in this article point towards possible avenues for future research.

Background The availability and use of mobile apps in health and nutrition management are increasing. Ease of access and user friendliness make diet-tracking apps an important ally in their users’ efforts to lose and manage weight. To foster motivation for long-term use and to achieve goals, it is necessary to better understand users’ opinions and needs for dietary self-monitoring. Objective The aim of this study was to identify the key topics and issues that users highlight in their reviews of diet-tracking apps on Google Play Store. Identifying the topics that users frequently mention in their reviews of these apps, along with the user ratings for each of these apps, allowed us to identify areas where further improvement of the apps could facilitate app use, and support users’ weight loss and intake management efforts. Methods We collected 72,084 user reviews from Google Play Store for 15 diet-tracking apps that allow users to track and count calories. After a series of text processing operations, two text-mining techniques (topic modeling and topical n-grams) were applied to the corpus of user reviews of diet-tracking apps. Results Using the topic modeling technique, 11 separate topics were extracted from the pool of user reviews. Most of the users providing feedback were generally satisfied with the apps they use (average rating of 4.4 out of 5 for the 15 apps). Most topics referred to the positive evaluation of the apps and their functions. Negatively rated topics mostly referred to app charges and technical difficulties encountered. We identified the positive and negative topic trigrams (3-word combinations) among the most frequently mentioned topics. Usability and functionality (tracking options) of apps were rated positively on average. Negative ratings were associated with trigrams related to adding new foods, technical issues, and app charges. Conclusions Motivating users to use an app over time could help them better achieve their nutrition goals. Although user reviews generally showed positive opinions and ratings of the apps, developers should pay more attention to users’ technical problems and inform users about expected payments, along with their refund and cancellation policies, to increase user loyalty.

Mobile software applications (apps) have transformed how individuals oversee and maintain their own health. One way that girls can monitor their menstrual cycles is through the increasingly widespread use of mobile menstrual tracking apps. This study aimed to examine menstrual symptom tracking for adolescents in English and Chinese apps, exploring menstrual literacy, cross-cultural differences, and framing, or presentation, of symptoms. The mixed-methods content analysis involved 15 popular free menstrual tracking apps in English (n = 8) and Chinese (n = 7), sampled from December 2022 to January 2023. A quantitative analysis of qualitative data was conducted through manual coding of content and automatically analyzing sentiment, or emotional tone, using a computational approach. We found that (1) menstrual literacy on symptom management or treatment was generally insufficient, (2) there were more available emotional than physical symptoms in English than Chinese apps, and (3) symptoms were framed more negatively than positively somewhat more in Chinese than English apps. Our findings emphasize the urgency to provide better evidence-informed communication about symptoms, either presented more positively or neutrally, in menstrual tracking apps for adolescent users. Since adolescence is a critical developmental stage that requires ample support, we recommend that digital menstrual trackers be crucially improved and future research should investigate how they can uniquely shape attitudes and experiences, and subsequent sexual and reproductive health empowerment and bodily autonomy.

To combat COVID-19, many governments have turned to tracking apps to detect exposure risk or enforce self-quarantine rules. Understanding factors that lead to public acceptance of these apps is essential since the adoption of these apps may help to suppress the pandemic. Based on a survey of 296 American respondents in May 2020, the study investigates the psychological processes that lead to COVID-19 tracking app acceptance. The results show that institutional trust affects acceptance through perceived effectiveness of the apps. In addition, perceived threat moderates the relationship between perceived app effectiveness and acceptance. When the perceived threat level is high, the relationship between perceived app effectiveness and acceptance is stronger. The results of the study provide a fruitful ground for future work that intends to examine the decisionmaking process that may affect health surveillance tracking app acceptance.