Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Feb 5, 2024
Date Accepted: Feb 26, 2025
Real-World Data-Based Alcohol Consumption Behavior Targeting Smartphone Healthcare Application Users in Japan: Retrospective Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Although several studies using smartphone applications have investigated the relationship between digital intervention and alcohol consumption, long-term alcohol consumption among the general population has not been clearly delineated.
Objective:
Revealing actual alcohol consumption behavior among alcohol drinkers in Japan.
Methods:
We conducted a retrospective study targeting five-year log data from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022, obtained from a commercial smartphone application.
Results:
The five-year mean rate of active users was 5.60% ± 3.19% and did not change significantly, even though the number of registered users increased approximately 20-fold. On the basis of alcohol log data randomly chosen from 9,991 users, a significant decrease in net alcohol intake in early 2020 was confirmed. Considering the social situation, this decrease may be related to the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Japan and the first governmental state of emergency.
Conclusions:
Real-world log data analyses including the period of the COVID-19 outbreak show that surveillance of alcohol consumption using smartphone application systems is possible. In addition, strongly worded requests by the government/authorities might have changed alcohol consumption behavior in Japan.
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