Reviewing mHealth in developing countries: A stakeholder perspective

Infrastructural deficiencies, limited access to medicare, and shortage of health care workers are just a few of the barriers to health care in developing countries. As a consequence, the burden of disease and its impact on the livelihoods and the economic productivity of people are staggering. mHealth has been extolled as one possible solution to overcoming these challenges, yet discussion of mHealth systems is often limited to specific tasks and user groups. To address this, we adopt a stakeholder perspective and analyze existing research on the mHealth process in developing countries. Specifically, we focus on three key stakeholder groups, i.e. healthcare workers, patients, and system developers. We perform an in-depth analysis of 60 peer-reviewed studies to determine the extent to which different mHealth stakeholder interactions are researched, and to identify high-level themes emerging within these interactions. This analysis illustrates two key gaps in existing mHealth research. First, while interactions involving healthcare workers and/or patients have received significant attention, relatively little research has looked at the role of patient-to-patient interactions. Second, the interactions between system developers and the other stakeholder groups are strikingly under-represented. We conclude by calling for more mHealth research that explicitly addresses these stakeholder interactions.

Childhood obesity treatment: integrating mobile health technology into a paediatric obesity service

Background: The management of childhood obesity is challenging. Aims: Thesis, i) reviews the evidence for lifestyle treatment of obesity, ii) explores cardiometabolic burden in childhood obesity, iii) explores whether changes in body composition predicts change in insulin sensitivity (IS), iv) develops and evaluates a lifestyle obesity intervention; v) develops a mobile health application for obesity treatment and vi) tests the application in a clinical trial. Methods: In Study 1, systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the 12‐month effects of lifestyle and mHealth interventions were conducted. In Study 2, the prevalence of cardiometabolic burden was estimated in a consecutive series of 267 children. In Study 3, body composition was estimated with bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and dual x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and linear regression analyses were used to estimate the extent to which each methods predicted change in IS. Study 4 describes the development of the Temple Street W82GO Healthy Lifestyle intervention for clinical obesity in children and a controlled study of treatment effect in 276 children is reported. Study 5 describes the development and testing of the Reactivate Mobile Obesity Application. Study 6 outlines the development and preliminary report from a clinical effectiveness trial of Reactivate. Results: In Study 1, meta--‐analyses BMI SDS changed by -0.16 (-0.24,‐0.07, p<0.01) and -0.03 (-0.13, 0.06, p=0.48). In study 2, cardiometabolic comorbidities were common (e.g. hypertension in 49%) and prevalence increased as obesity level increased. In Study 3, BC changes significantly predicted changes in IS. In Study 4, BMI SDS was significantly reduced in W82GO compared to controls (p<0.001). In Study 5, the Reactivate application had good usability indices and preliminary 6‐month process report data from Study 6, revealed a promising effect for Reactivate. Conclusions: W82GO and Reactivate are promising forms of treatment.