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Leveraging Community for mHealth Research and Development

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Technology Enabled Knowledge Translation for eHealth

Part of the book series: Healthcare Delivery in the Information Age ((Healthcare Delivery Inform. Age))

Abstract

The use of mobile technologies in health-care, often referred to as mHealth, is redefining how health information and services can be delivered in the twenty-first century. Modern mobile devices offer advanced multimedia communication in a highly personalized and easily accessible fashion, and mobile Internet means that users can tap into a variety of social networks and health communities from anywhere in the world. The focus of this chapter is to examine the rapid development of mobile computing devices such as cell phones, smartphones, tablets, and portable computers, and how these devices shape the emergence of mobile communities in a health-care context. By examining relevant research into how social networks and mobile communities develop, this chapter aims to support researchers and developers in creating and evaluating mobile health tools and interventions, focusing on making meaningful impacts on health care in the digital age. Drawing on a variety of theoretical and empirical research, this chapter explores mHealth initiatives that are currently available to patients and the relevant community factors that underpin their success. The applicability of the mobile community phenomenon in health and the implications of how community and social network theory can be leveraged for health improvement and behavior change will be examined. This chapter will provide a framework for understanding how mobile technology creates optimal conditions for enhanced personalized and community-driven health service delivery, research, and knowledge translation and will describe some of the anticipated success factors for mHealth interventions in the future.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Readers particularly interested in exploring the attachment between mobile users and their devices are directed to the work of Wehmeyer (2008) who has drafted a scale to assess the nature of the relationship between user and device and the impact that relationship has on user behavior. Potential areas of impact for this scale include research to enhance user segmentation in mobile services, to evaluate the success of mobile advertising, and to conduct interpretive studies of user behavior on mobile devices.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. eHealth Strategy Office, University of British Columbia, 855 West 10th Ave, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1L7, Canada

    Daniel Hooker MLIS & Kendall Ho M.D., FRCPC

  2. Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, University of Toronto, 70 Spadina Road, Unit 407, Toronto, ON, M5R 2T6, Canada

    Nelson Shen MHA

Authors
  1. Daniel Hooker MLIS
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  2. Nelson Shen MHA
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  3. Kendall Ho M.D., FRCPC
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Correspondence to Daniel Hooker MLIS .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, West 10th Ave. #202-855, Vancouver, V5Z 1L7, British Columbia, Canada

    Kendall Ho

  2. , eHealth Strategy Office, University of British Columbia, #202-855 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, V5Z 1L7, British Columbia, Canada

    Sandra Jarvis-Selinger

  3. , eHealth Strategy Office, University of British Columbia, #202-855 West 10th A, Vancouver, V5Z 1L7, British Columbia, Canada

    Helen Novak Lauscher

  4. , eHealth Strategy Office, University of British Columbia, #202-855 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver, V5Z 1L7, British Columbia, Canada

    Jennifer Cordeiro

  5. , Health Sciences Centre, University of Calgary, 3330 Hospital Drive NW, Calgary, T2N 4N1, Alberta, Canada

    Richard Scott

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Hooker, D., Shen, N., Ho, K. (2012). Leveraging Community for mHealth Research and Development. In: Ho, K., Jarvis-Selinger, S., Novak Lauscher, H., Cordeiro, J., Scott, R. (eds) Technology Enabled Knowledge Translation for eHealth. Healthcare Delivery in the Information Age. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3495-5_10

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