Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Sep 11, 2024
Date Accepted: Mar 2, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Mobile apps to prevent of violence against women and girls globally: a systematic app research and content analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Numerous reviews have explored specific aspects of violence prevention apps, but given the rapid development of new apps, increased violence during COVID-19, and gaps in understanding functionalities and geographical distribution, an updated review is needed.
Objective:
Therefore, we aimed to systematically evaluate the trends, geographical distribution, functional categories, available features, and feature evolution of mobile apps designed to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Methods:
We conducted a systematic search on app reselling platforms and search engines from April 24, 2024, to May 28, 2024, using terms related to violence against women and girls in multiple languages. We included apps meeting our criteria for addressing VAWG, without restrictions on date or language. We conducted content analysis of app and apps were categorized by functionality and feature type. We performed descriptive analyses, trend analysis, and co-occurrence network analysis, and geographical mapping.
Results:
Out of 432 apps initially identified, 178 were included in the final analysis. Of these, 99 apps were available on both Google Play and the App Store, 64 were exclusive to Google Play. Most apps were implemented in the North America (27%), followed by South Asia (17%) and the Europe and Central Asia (17%). Emergency and support applications were most prevalent across regions. Most apps (74%) originated from the private sector and designed for victims (68%), were free without in-app purchases (56%), had a website (83%), and offered GPS features (80%), but only 15% provided offline functionality. App releases peaked in 2020 (19%), followed by a decline. Regression analysis indicated a significant trend (p=0.01) increase in app release, with a 2.40 unit increase per year before 2020 and a 7.01 unit decrease after, showing a post-2020 decline of 4.61 units per year. Apps were primarily categorized as emergency (n=110) or support (n=81), with most emergency apps in the 10,000 to ≥100,000 downloads range. Network analysis showed that emergency services (degree=10, clustering coefficient=0.911), location sharing (degree=10, clustering coefficient=0.911), SOS alerts (degree=10, clustering coefficient=0.911), and educational resources (degree=10, clustering coefficient=0.911) features highly co-occurred in the same app. We found a gradual shift towards more sophisticated and comprehensive safety tools, evolving from basic GPS tracking and SOS alerts to advanced features like real-time communication, panic buttons, peer support, and group communication, culminating in multi-functional platforms offering personalized safety, community engagement, and proactive risk identification
Conclusions:
Most apps to prevent VAWG emphasize emergency and support functions, and although initial releases increased, there has been a recent decline, with a shift towards integrating more comprehensive safety solutions like communication, reporting, and community engagement. Future app development should prioritize cross-platform availability, offline functionality, public sector collaboration, and the integration of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence. Clinical Trial: 1111111111
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