JMIR Formative Research

Up to 15% of pregnant and postpartum women commonly experience undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, which may result in serious health complications. Mobile health (mHealth) apps related to mental health have been previously used for early diagnosis and intervention but not among pregnant and postpartum women.

More than half of adults in Germany have felt lonely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies highlight the importance of boosting positive emotions and social connectedness to combat loneliness. However, interventions targeting these protective psychosocial resources remain largely untested.

Suicide among young people is a worrying public health concern. Despite this, there is a lack of suitable interventions aligned with the needs of this priority population. Emerging evidence supports the effectiveness of digital interventions in alleviating the severity of suicidal thoughts. However, their efficacy may be undermined by poor engagement. Technology-supported strategies (eg, electronic prompts and reminders) have been deployed alongside digital interventions to increase engagement with the latter. However, evidence of their efficacy is inconclusive. User-centered design approaches may be key to developing feasible and effective engagement strategies. Currently, no study has been published on how such an approach might be expressly applied toward developing strategies for promoting engagement with digital interventions.

Antimicrobial resistance, the ability of microorganisms to survive antimicrobial drugs, is a public health emergency. Although electronic prescribing (ePrescribing)–based interventions designed to reduce unnecessary antimicrobial usage exist, these often do not integrate effectively with existing workflows. As a result, ePrescribing-based interventions may have limited impact in addressing antimicrobial resistance.

Sleep disorders are common and disproportionately affect marginalized populations. Technology, such as wearable devices, holds the potential to improve sleep quality and reduce sleep disparities, but most devices have not been designed or tested with racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse patients. Inclusion and engagement of diverse patients throughout digital health development and implementation are critical to achieving health equity.

Most individuals seeking asylum in Germany live in collective housing and are thus exposed to a higher risk of contagion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inclined walking is a challenging task that requires active neuromuscular control to maintain stability. However, the adaptive strategies that preserve stability during inclined walking are not well understood. Investigating the effects of self-paced inclined treadmill walking on gait stability characteristics and the activation patterns of key lower limb muscles can provide insights into these strategies.

Physician burnout is a multibillion-dollar issue in the United States. Despite its prevalence, burnout is difficult to accurately measure. Institutions generally rely on periodic surveys that are subject to recall bias. SMS text message–based surveys or assessments have been used in health care and have the advantage of easy accessibility and high response rates.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional health care model has evolved toward a more patient-centric model. In relation to this trend, digital health services have seen an acceleration, which may have significant implications for the health care model. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on health care facilities, it is important to explore health professionals’ willingness to adopt a patient-centric digital health delivery model for medicine and health care.

Clear, accurate, and transparent risk communication is critical to providing policy makers and the public with directions to effectively implement public health strategies during a health emergency.

Novel smartphone app–delivered interventions have the potential to improve HIV treatment adherence among adolescents with HIV, although such interventions are limited. Our team has developed Masakhane Siphucule Impilo Yethu (MASI; Xhosa for “Let's empower each other and improve our health”), a smartphone app–delivered intervention to improve treatment adherence among adolescents with HIV in South Africa. MASI was adapted to the South African cultural context using the HealthMpowerment platform, an evidence-based digital health intervention developed for and with youth in the United States.

Promoting pulse consumption in schools could improve students’ healthy food choices. Pulses, described as legumes, are rich in protein and micronutrients and are an important food choice for health and well-being. However, most Canadians consume very little pulse-based food.