Advancing the Science of mHealth

"Mobile health (mHealth) technologies have the potential to greatly impact health research, health care, and health outcomes, but the exponential growth of the technology has outpaced the science."

This article outlines two initiatives designed to enhance the science of mHealth.

• The mHealth Evidence Workshop, August 16 2011, used a panel to identify optimal methodological approaches for mHealth research. The meeting focused on three areas that affect research in mHealth: study design methodology, data aggregation and statistical strategies, and infrastructure innovation. it addressed a need for a spectrum of evaluation methods in mHealth. The workshop also highlighted research on the use of new data and statistical methods that employ machine learning, artificial intelligence and reality mining. Infrastructure discussion included: "Based on the Internet ecosystem, the open platform specifies that all the significant interfaces between the hardware and software components in the mHealth open system should be standardized and agreed upon through collaboration among stakeholders. The open mHealth approach also specifies that interfaces should be published and available to the public."
• The (US) National Institute of Health (NIH) mHealth Training Institutes addressed "the silos among the many academic and technology areas in mHealth research and is an effort to build the interdisciplinary research capacity of the field." This institute approached the thinking that market creation of innovation needs to be informed by "...the corpus of clinical, behavioral, and measurement methodology literature" in order to be maximally effective. It brought together leaders in mobile technology and behavioural sciences to lead a cross-training event for early career investigators with interest in mHealth.

Both events were intended to address the growing need for high quality mobile health research both in the United States and internationally. "mHealth requires a solid, interdisciplinary scientific approach that pairs the rapid change associated with technological progress with a rigorous evaluation approach. The mHealth Evidence Workshop and the NIH mHealth Training Institutes were both designed to address and further develop this scientific approach to mHealth."