Health apps benefits and disadvantages for healthy people

Can healthy people benefit from health apps?

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Some apps have the potential to encourage healthier habits and are accessible to most people, writes Iltifat Husain, but Des Spence notes the lack of any evidence of effectiveness and the potential for encouraging unnecessary anxiety.

What is the harm in health apps – none, right? And surely they can only be good at enhancing healthy behaviors? Or:

  • are there too many apps of too little value?
  • are there lots of potential for otherwise healthy people to get unhealthily worried – obsessed even – about their normal health?.

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Sources and more information

  • Can healthy people benefit from health apps?, BMJ 2015;350:h1887, 14 April 2015.
  • What is the point of health apps when we are healthy?, medicalnewstoday, Wednesday 15 April 2015.
  • Report Questions Whether Health Apps Benefit Healthy People, nytimes, APRIL 14, 2015.
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