The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Gamification Use and Design in Popular Health and Fitness Mobile Applications
Open accessAbstract
Purpose: To evaluate the presence of gamification in popular mobile applications and whether principles from behavioral economics were incorporated in the design. Design: The top 50 ranked free health and fitness applications were downloaded. Gamification elements were predetermined through literature review, and applications were evaluated for their presence. Setting: App Store by Apple Inc. Measures: Presence of gamification, type of game element, and use of behavioral economic principles. Analysis: We classified the types and frequencies of targeted behaviors and features of gamification. Use of behavioral economic principles focused on designing rewards or points using loss aversion (allocated upfront and could be lost), variable reinforcement (not allocated constantly), and probability inflation (using drawings or lottery designs). Results: Gamification was used by 64% of mobile applications. Most applications that included gamification (97%) targeted behaviors related to physical activity and weight loss. Applications focused on other areas such as reproductive health, meditation, and sleep used gamification less often (11%). Game elements used most commonly included goal setting (78%), social influences (78%), and challenges (63%), while less common elements included points (6%) and levels (3%). No applications incorporated behavioral economics principles specified in the study. Conclusions: Gamification was commonly used by popular health and fitness mobile applications, but none used the specified behavioral economic principles to design rewards or points. Mobile applications could potentially improve their use if their design better leveraged principles from behavioral economics.
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“A study from 2017, where the top 50 health and fitness apps were downloaded from the Apple app store, found that physical activity and weight loss apps most frequently (97%) used gamification [36].”
From System Usability Scale Benchmarking for Digital Health Apps: Meta-analysis (2022) · cites this paper as [36]
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Self-citationHaff, N., Patel, M. S., Lim, R. K. S., Zhu, J., Troxel, A. B., Asch, D. A., & Volpp, K. G. M. (2015) · American Journal of Health Promotion · doi:10.4278/ajhp.140714-lit-333 · Cited by 148
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Self-citationPatel, M. S., Foschini, L., Kurtzman, G. W., Zhu, J., Wang, W., Rareshide, C. A. L., & Zbikowski, S. M. (2017) · Annals of Internal Medicine · doi:10.7326/m17-1495 · Cited by 57
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- Patel MS, 2018, Am J Health Promot, 890117118758932
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Metadata
- Authors
- Cotton, V., & Patel, M. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Philadelphia VA Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Patel, Mitesh S.
- ORCID
- Patel, Mitesh S.
- Venue
- American Journal of Health Promotion
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2018-07-26
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 448-451
- ISSN
- 0890-1171 (ISSN-L)
- 2168-6602
- PMC
- PMC6348030
- OpenAlex
- W2884180038
- Cited by
- 110
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 23.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- American Journal of Health Promotion (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Pennsylvania Health System
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- gamification, behavioral economics, loss aversion, variable reinforcement, goal setting, social influence, physical activity, weight loss, mobile application design
- MeSH terms
- Goals, Humans, Motivation, Physical Fitness, Social Support, Health Behavior, Exercise, Video Games, Economics, Behavioral, Mobile Applications
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