Mobile Devices and Health

Mobile health (mHealth) leverages sensors, apps, and AI to monitor and manage wellness and disease, offering potential benefits for chronic disease care. This review explores passive and active sensing technologies (e.g., smartphones, wearables), digital biomarkers, and therapeutics, alongside challenges like data integration, regulation, and equity. While mHealth shows promise in diagnostics (e.g., Parkinson’s disease) and interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy), barriers include high drop off rates, workflow integration, and privacy concerns. The FDA’s Digital Health Software Precertification Program aims to streamline regulation, but ethical issues like digital divides and surveillance risks persist. Clinicians and policymakers must ensure mHealth advances are equitable, validated, and patient-centered.

Mobile health (mHealth) leverages sensors, apps, and AI to monitor and manage wellness and disease, offering potential benefits for chronic disease care. This review explores passive and active sensing technologies (e.g., smartphones, wearables), digital biomarkers, and therapeutics, alongside challenges like data integration, regulation, and equity. While mHealth shows promise in diagnostics (e.g., Parkinson’s disease) and interventions (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy), barriers include high drop off rates, workflow integration, and privacy concerns. The FDA’s Digital Health Software Precertification Program aims to streamline regulation, but ethical issues like digital divides and surveillance risks persist. Clinicians and policymakers must ensure mHealth advances are equitable, validated, and patient-centered.