Healthcare in the pocket: mapping the space of mobile-phone health interventions.
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Date
2012-02-03
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Abstract
Mobile phones are becoming an increasingly important platform for the delivery of health interventions In recent years researchers have used mobile phones as tools for encouraging physical activity and healthy diets for symptom monitoring in asthma and heart disease for sending patients reminders about upcoming appointments for supporting smoking cessation and for a range of other health problems This paper provides an overview of this rapidly growing body of work We describe the features of mobile phones that make them a particularly promising platform for health interventions and we identify five basic intervention strategies that have been used in mobile phone health applications across different health conditions Finally we outline the directions for future research that could increase our understanding of functional and design requirements for the development of highly effective mobile phone health interventions