Mobile health

Anxiety disorders are among the most common psychiatric problems in youth, fail to spontaneously remit, and place some youth at risk for additional behavioral and emotional difficulties. Efforts to target anxiety have resulted in evidence-based interventions but the resulting prevention effects are relatively small, often weakening over time. Mobile health (mHealth) tools could be of use to strengthen the effects of anxiety prevention efforts. Although a large number of mHealth apps have been developed, few have been evaluated in terms of usability prior to clinical effectiveness testing...

PURPOSE: To evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a text messaging intervention to increase contraception among adolescent emergency department patients. METHODS: A pilot randomized controlled trial of sexually active females aged 14-19 receiving 3 months of theory-based, unidirectional educational and motivational texts providing reproductive health information versus standardized discharge instructions. Blinded assessors measured contraception initiation via telephone follow-up and health record review at 3 months...

This study investigates validity of self-reported mobile phone use in a subset of 75 993 adults from the COSMOS cohort study. Agreement between self-reported and operator-derived mobile call frequency and duration for a 3-month period was assessed using Cohen's weighted Kappa (κ). Sensitivity and specificity of both self-reported high (≥10 calls/day or ≥4h/week) and low (≤6 calls/week or <30min/week) mobile phone use were calculated, as compared to operator data. For users of one mobile phone, agreement was fair for call frequency (κ=0...

PROBLEM DEFINITION: Patients must make sense of increasingly complex information to navigate their health and the health care system, with limited opportunity to do so in clinical settings. Patient education videos may help to communicate key information, but they are often impersonal and cumbersome to produce or update with new evidence. To address these limitations, a program was developed to facilitate local video creation to deliver targeted information to patients. APPROACH: The Patient Education Video Program was created at a large urban academic medical center...

OBJECTIVE: Mobile phone applications (apps) are increasingly being used by patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). We sought to describe the main purpose of commonly available renal diet apps and to quantify the accuracy of information, technical quality, and health literacy demand of renal diet apps. DESIGN: The design was content analysis. All eligible renal diet apps in the Australian Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone, and Blackberry App World were evaluated...

PURPOSE: Mobile mammographic services have been proposed as a way to reduce Latinas' disproportionate late-stage presentation compared with white women by increasing their access to mammography. The aims of this study were to assess why Latinas may not use mobile mammographic services and to explore their preferences after using these services. METHODS: Using a mixed-methods approach, a secondary analysis was conducted of baseline survey data (n = 538) from a randomized controlled trial to improve screening mammography rates among Latinas in Washington...

Antibiotics, antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB), antibiotic-resistance genes (ARGs), and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) have been reported in many environments. However, the investigation of their occurrence and diversity in untreated hospital wastewater is still insufficient. High concentrations of antibiotic residues were found in hospital wastewater using solid-phase extraction and UPLC-MS/MS analysis. The concentrations of six of 14 antibiotics reached μg/L levels in the hospital wastewater, which is higher than reported in other aquatic environments...

Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) are emerging environmental contaminants posing a threat to public health. Antibiotics and metals are widely used as feed additives and could consequently affect ARGs in swine gut. In this study, high-throughput quantitative polymerase chain reaction (HT-qPCR) based ARG chip and next-generation 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing data were analyzed using multiple statistical approaches to profile the antibiotic resistome and investigate its linkages to antibiotics and metals used as feed additives and to the microbial community composition in freshly collected swine manure samples from three large-scale Chinese pig farms...

BACKGROUND: Internet use for health information has dramatically increased in the past decade. Mobile medical applications (MMAs) could be a useful tool to improve postoperative patient education and care. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of an MMA on patient care in plastic surgery. METHODS: An MMA was developed to improve postoperative plastic surgery patients care. All patients who underwent surgery at our plastic surgery department between August and November 2014 and were willing to download the MMA were included...

AIMS: This study explored the association between enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS) and the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with acute ischemic stroke. METHODS: This was an observational study of consecutively screened patients with acute ischemic stroke from March 2010 to March 2015. EPVS were rated in the basal ganglia and the centrum semiovale with a validated scale. The HRQoL was assessed 3 months after the stroke onset using the Stroke-Specific Quality of Life (SSQoL)...

AIM: Social media holds promise for expanding the reach of mental health services, especially for young people who frequently use these popular platforms. We surveyed social media users who self-identified as having a mental illness to learn about their use of social media for mental health and to identify opportunities to augment existing mental health services. METHODS: We asked 240 Twitter users who self-identified in their profile as having a mental illness to participate in an online survey...

Reverse innovation, defined as the flow of ideas from low- to high-income settings, is gaining traction in healthcare. With an increasing focus on value, investing in low-cost but effective and innovative solutions can be of mutual benefit to both high- and low-income countries. Reverse innovation has a role in addressing maternal health challenges in high-income countries by harnessing these innovative solutions for vulnerable populations especially in rural and remote regions. In this paper, we present three examples of 'reverse innovation' for maternal health: a low-cost, easy-to-use blood pressure device (CRADLE), a diagnostic algorithm (mini PIERS) and accompanying mobile app (PIERS on the Move), and a novel method for mapping maternal outcomes (MOM)...

BACKGROUND: Approximately 5.5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD) in 2017. YouTube is a popular platform for disseminating health information; however, little is known about messages specifically regarding AD that are being communicated through YouTube. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine video characteristics, content, speaker characteristics, and mobilizing information (cues to action) of YouTube videos focused on AD. METHODS: Videos uploaded to YouTube from 2013 to 2015 were searched with the term "Alzheimer's disease" on April 30th, 2016...

Iodine is a biophilic element that is important for human health, both as an essential component of several thyroid hormones and, on the other hand, as a potential carcinogen in the form of radioiodine generated by anthropogenic nuclear activity. Iodine exists in multiple oxidation states (-1, 0, +1, +3, +5, and +7), primarily as molecular iodine (I2), iodide (I(-)), iodate [Formula: see text] , or organic iodine (org-I). The mobility of iodine in the environment is dependent on its speciation and a series of redox, complexation, sorption, precipitation, and microbial reactions...

BACKGROUND: Public health leaders in Yellowstone County, Montana, formed an alliance to address community-wide issues. One such issue is Complete Streets, with its vision of safe streets for all. This case study focuses on development and adoption of a Complete Streets policy. It examines how a community coalition, Healthy By Design, infused a gender focus into the policymaking process. METHODS: An incremental and nonlinear policymaking process was aided by a focus on gender and health equity...

BACKGROUND: Maternal mental illness constitutes one of most significant public health problems facing women of reproductive age and their children. Women who mother in poverty experience additional stressors, pointing to the need for innovative public health promotion efforts to reduce mental illness. Simple innovations, like making diapers more available and affordable, may represent an effective method of addressing this problem. This paper describes the research findings on diaper need reported by the New Haven Mental Health Outreach for Mothers Partnership and the process of translating these findings into broader policy and advocacy efforts...

OBJECTIVES: Physical activity confers many health benefits, but the underlying mechanisms require further exploration. In this pilot randomized controlled trial we tested the association between longitudinal measures of DNA methylation and changes in objective measures including physical activity, weight loss, and C-reactive protein levels in community-dwelling women aged 55 to 70 years. METHODS: We assessed DNA methylation from 20 healthy post-menopausal women (55-70 years of age), who did not have a mobility disability and allocated them to a group-based intervention, Everyday Activity Supports You (EASY), or a control group (monthly group-based health-related education sessions)...

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze, by using the ALFA4Hearing model (At-a-Glance Labeling for Features of Apps for Hearing Health Care), a sample of apps over a wide range of services in the hearing health care (HHC) domain in order to take a first picture of the current scenario of apps for HHC. Method: We tested 120 apps, and we characterized them by using the ALFA4Hearing model, which includes 29 features in 5 components (Promoters, Services, Implementation, Users, and Descriptive Information)...

Health communication and social mobilization efforts to improve the public's knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding Ebola virus disease (Ebola) were important in controlling the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in Guinea (1), which resulted in 3,814 reported Ebola cases and 2,544 deaths.* Most Ebola cases in Guinea resulted from the washing and touching of persons and corpses infected with Ebola without adequate infection control precautions at home, at funerals, and in health facilities (2,3). As the 18-month epidemic waned in August 2015, Ebola KAP were assessed in a survey among residents of Guinea recruited through multistage cluster sampling procedures in the nation's eight administrative regions (Boké, Conakry, Faranah, Kankan, Kindia, Labé, Mamou, and Nzérékoré)...

Smartphones and electronic tablets (e-tablets) have become ubiquitous devices. Their ease of use, smartness, accessibility, mobility and connectivity create unique opportunities to improve quality of surgical care from prehabilitation to rehabilitation. Before surgery, digital applications (Apps), serious games and text messaging may help for a better control of risk factors (hypertension, overweight), for smoking cessation, and for optimizing adherence to preoperative recommendations (e.g., regarding anticoagulation or antihypertensive treatments)...