- Downloads of mobile health applications increased by 200% between 2019 and 2020.
- By 2027, these types of options could be worth nearly $2 billion.
- The downside is the possible sale of users’ health information to third parties.
Technology has been a great help to the modern world. One of its main contributions has been to facilitate the lives of millions of people through the use of mobile health applications They have been available for years, although it was from the start of the pandemic that they registered an exponential increase.
In the first place, one of the factors that led to this transformation was the development and heyday of smartphones. Now they are within the reach of millions of individuals and allow them to be permanently connected to the Internet.
What is a mobile application?
Its simplest definition is that it is a computer program designed to run on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. The variety of options is unlimited because they allow you to carry out from leisure and entertainment activities to other educational ones.
For its part, the number of apps that exist is almost unlimited and grows more every day. To date there are more than two million although there are some that are better known than the rest. Among the most downloaded are TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
However, according to the Statista Health Market Insights report, the mobile health apps they achieved a record increase during 2022. In the United States alone, it is estimated that 28% of the population used at least one drug app in the past year.
As part of this same investigation it is mentioned that In 2017, the applications to keep track of drug consumption generated profits of 201.7 million dollars. While for 2022 the figure was 370.4 million dollars. While the predictions indicate that by 2027 it could reach 642.5 million dollars.
Handling confidential information within mobile health applications
Despite this optimistic picture there are also some negative points. According to researchers at the Duke University School of Public Policy, the biggest risk is the sale of personal information to third parties.
Of 34 companies analyzed, it was found that 10 were ready to sell lists with details about the mental health of their clients. In this way there are other companies that would have a clearer vision of the type of people to whom they could offer their services.
As Joanne Kim, the researcher behind the study, points out, downloads of mobile health apps increased by 200% between 2019 and 2020. In contrast, by 2027 the combined revenue from the purchase of comprehensive apps such as Headspace, Calm medication checkers like MyRxProfile y Drug Interaction Checker it could be worth nearly $2 billion.
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