Digital Health: Mobile and Wearable Devices for Participatory Health Applications

Mobile health tools promise to bring care, research, and health information closer to people—but a promising app or wearable is only the beginning. Digital Health: Mobile and Wearable Devices for Participatory Health Applications examines the practical, technical, and human considerations involved in developing and using these technologies across healthcare.

Bringing together perspectives from health, engineering, computing, and policy, this edited reference follows digital health from concepts and design through implementation, evaluation, and sustainability. Its focus is not simply on what devices can collect, but on how their use can support patient participation and fit into real clinical and public-health settings.

From connected devices to meaningful health applications

Chapters explore mobile and wearable technologies, digital phenotyping, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning with device-generated data. Other discussions consider participatory mHealth research, user engagement, and how self-tracked information may contribute to disease insights. Together, these subjects give readers a view of both the capabilities of connected health tools and the questions that accompany their use.

Design, implementation, and the realities of adoption

The book also turns to the work behind putting digital health into practice: developing and tailoring programs, moving health apps from laboratory settings toward the market, and considering the conditions that shape implementation and sustainability. Case studies—including a discussion of public-health opportunities and challenges in Sri Lanka—ground the wider themes in specific contexts.

Ethics, security, and policy belong in the conversation

Privacy, cybersecurity, regulation, and government policy are addressed alongside technical and clinical topics. That breadth makes the book useful for readers who need to consider not only whether a solution can be built, but also how it can be responsibly assessed, adopted, and integrated.

A reference for a multidisciplinary field

Graduate students, researchers, software developers, biomedical and clinical engineers, medical informatics specialists, and healthcare professionals will find material relevant to their different roles in digital health. The chapters offer an informed starting point for understanding the field’s methods, applications, opportunities, and persistent challenges.