“The BUS Framework: A comprehensive tool in creating an mHealth App utilizing Behavior Change Theories, User-Centered Design, and Social Marketing”

Abstract

Despite the explosion of health-related mobile applications (apps) – now numbering more than 43,0001 – few are widely used. One quarter of all apps downloaded are only used once.2 Amongst apps that help people manage their health, most are only downloaded fewer than 500 times, and only five apps account for 15% of all health app downloads.2 However, research has shown that when they are used, health apps are successful at improving the user's health outcomes and preventing disease.3,4 Despite these successes of health apps, they are still not used to their fullest potential. A national survey found that while 58% of adults own a smart phone only half of these adults have apps on their phones.5,6 In fact, only one in three app users has ever down-loaded an app that helps track or manage health.6 While health apps are not currently widely used, they are growing in popularity and could be an opportune platform to deliver health promotion campaigns. For this health promotion platform to be optimized, it is important that end-users are engaged in the health app development – a step that has been sometimes neglected in the health app development process