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Mobile Health Application and e-Health Literacy: Opportunities and Concerns for Cancer Patients and Caregivers

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Abstract

Health literacy is critical for cancer patients as they must understand complex procedures or treatment options. Caregivers’ health literacy also plays a crucial role in caring for cancer patients. Low health literacy is associated with low adherence to medications, poor health status, and increased health care costs. There is a growing interest in the use of mobile health applications (apps) to improve health literacy. Mobile health apps can empower underserved cancer patients and their caregivers by providing features or functionalities to enhance interactive patient-provider communication and to understand medical information more readily. Despite the potentiality of improving health literacy through mobile health apps, there exist several related concerns: no equal access to mobile technology, no familiarity or knowledge of using mobile health apps, and privacy and security concerns. These elements should be taken into account for health policy making and mobile apps design and development. Importantly, mobile apps should be developed with the goal of achieving a high range of user access by considering all health literacy level and various cultural and linguistic needs.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Health Systems Management and Policy, University of Memphis School of Public Health, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Hyunmin Kim, Asos Mahmood, M. Paige Powell & Soumitra S. Bhuyan

  2. Department of Communication, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Joy V. Goldsmith

  3. Department of Business Information and Technology, The Fogelman College of Business and Economics, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Soham Sengupta

  4. Health Research & Educational Trust, American Hospital Association, Chicago, IL, 60606, USA

    Jay Bhatt & Soumitra S. Bhuyan

  5. Department of Economics, The Fogelman College of Business and Economics, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Cyril F. Chang

  6. The Methodist and Le Bonheur Center for Healthcare Economics, Memphis, TN, 38152, USA

    Cyril F. Chang & Soumitra S. Bhuyan

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  1. Hyunmin Kim
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  2. Joy V. Goldsmith
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Correspondence to Soumitra S. Bhuyan.

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Kim, H., Goldsmith, J.V., Sengupta, S. et al. Mobile Health Application and e-Health Literacy: Opportunities and Concerns for Cancer Patients and Caregivers. J Canc Educ 34, 3–8 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-017-1293-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-017-1293-5

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