Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Data for this study came from a content analysis of health and fitness app descriptions available on iTunes during February Apps related to healthy eating, physical activity, and personal health and wellness were more common than apps for substance abuse, mental and emotional health, violence prevention and safety, and sexual and reproductive health. Reinforcing apps were less common than predisposing and enabling apps.
Only 1. Development efforts could target public health behaviors for which few apps currently exist. Furthermore, practitioners should be cautious when promoting the use of apps as it appears most provide health-related information predisposing or make attempts at enabling behavior, with almost none including all theoretical factors recommended for behavior change.
The use of mobile devices in supporting health behavior change is promising. Aside from expanded opportunities for users to access health information, mobile devices are becoming useful for facilitating the ongoing collection of personal data and cueing behavior change at the most appropriate times [ 1 ].
One of the earliest applications was in when wristwatches were used to cue recovering addicts to complete logs regarding their behavior and feelings [ 2 ]. The most recent health applications have focused on a simple message system [ 3 ], mostly related to diabetes management [ 4 - 6 ] and smoking cessation [ 4 , 7 ].
Clinical care applications are most prevalent with fewer targeting preventive health behaviors [ 4 ]. The recent emergence of smartphones has greatly enlarged both the reach and realm of possibilities for health purposes. In particular, it has provided a platform for developers to design third-party applications apps , which expand the functionality and utility of these mobile devices.
