JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Healthcare providers can make health guidance more efficient and effective by using mobile health technologies such as health management applications (health apps), which have been developed and disseminated to individuals for improving behavior and disease management. However, healthcare providers need to know who uses health apps, and existing studies have yielded inconsistent factors associated with health app use.

Objective:

To clarify the experiences and factors associated with the use of a health app to improve health behaviors for the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases among Japanese workers.

Methods:

Data were collected from a cross-sectional internet survey conducted by the research company Cross Marketing in 2023. In total, 2,200 participants were included, with an even distribution of men and women in each age group from 20 to 60 years of age. Participants were workers (including part-time workers), had a smartphone, and reported their gender, age, area of residence, marital status, education, employment status, occupation, work pattern, diseases under treatment, health checkups, health guidance, health behaviors (smoking, physical activity, drinking, sleeping, appropriate weight, breakfast, snacking), Internet use duration, and number of devices used. We asked about the current and previous use of apps over one month. To identify the associations between current and previous app use and the abovementioned factors, we conducted a multivariate logistic regression analysis separately for men and women. The dependent variables were current and previous app use and the independent variables were age, education, occupation, health checkups, health guidance, health behaviors, Internet use duration, and number of devices.

Results:

Of the participants, 472 (21.5%) and 189 (8.6%) were current and previous health app users, respectively. Almost all current and previous health app users used the feature to record and track their physical activity and other health behaviors. Health app users—both men and women—were more likely to be younger, receive health guidance, engage in regular physical activity, and spend more time on the Internet. According to gender, male health app users were more likely to be married and less likely to work in the security, agriculture, forestry, fishing, production, or transportation industries. Female health app users were more likely to have a university education or higher, maintain an appropriate weight, and use three or more devices.

Conclusions:

It is possible to increase the number of users by introducing effective easy-to-use and evidence-based apps for lifestyle improvement. Physical activity and health guidance are strong predictors of app use. Healthcare providers should assess the target populations’ preferences for app use based on their characteristics and support their app usage to improve their behavior and enhance the effectiveness of health guidance.