Social media and mobile applications in chronic disease prevention and management

Social media, online social networks and apps for smartphones and tablets are changing the way we communicate. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 73% of Internet users among US adults engage in social networking to access, create, and share contents (Duggan and Smith, 2013). The number of smartphone users is growing worldwide [56% of American adults are currently smartphone owners (Smith, 2013)], and millions of applications (most of them related to social media or other communication tools) are available on the Google Play or iTunes store. The increased prevalence of chronic (and non-communicable) diseases in high-income countries is today largely attributable to the convergence of an aging population with the persistence of several risk factors, including physical inactivity, use of tobacco and alcohol, high blood pressure and cholesterol, stress, depression, and overweight and obesity. Many of these risk factors can be mitigated by health interventions and education, and communication tools could support healthy lifestyle and behavior change. In the past years there was an increasing interest in the use of digital technologies to support these changes because they contribute to enhance levels of surveillance over behaviors and have the potential to provide acceptable and cost-effective interventions by transferring treatment, rehabilitation and prevention of a condition to self-care in the community (Castelnuovo et al., 2010). Social media and smartphone-based applications are now changing how people interact with the healthcare and public health systems (Santoro, 2013; Santoro and Quintaliani, 2013). The participatory, interactive nature of social media platforms allows for information to be generated and shared in a viral fashion, and provide new mechanisms to foster engagement and partnership with consumers, to change their behaviors and to fight against unhealthy lifestyles. More than 100,000 health related apps are also available in the market allowing people to record, track, and analyze vital signs and physical health data over time, to obtain feedback and general information about the disease they suffer from, and to receive alerts to remind them to take their medications or to measure their blood glucose levels. Due to their possible implications in public health a growing number of scientists suggests to incorporate social media and mobile health in health promotion and healthcare programs (Burke-Garcia and Scally, 2014).