Considerations for Community-Based mHealth Initiatives: Insights From Three Beacon Communities
Open accessAbstract
Mobile health (mHealth) is gaining widespread attention for its potential to engage patients in their health and health care in their daily lives. Emerging evidence suggests that mHealth interventions can be used effectively to support behavior change, but numerous challenges remain when implementing these programs at the community level. This paper provides an overview of considerations when implementing community-based mHealth initiatives, based on the experiences of three Beacon Communities across the United States that have launched text messaging (short message service, SMS) pilot programs aimed at diabetes risk reduction and disease management. The paper addresses lessons learned and suggests strategies to overcome challenges related to developing text message content, conducting marketing and outreach, enrolling participants, engaging providers, evaluating program effectiveness, and sustaining and scaling the programs.
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Drawbacks such as counselor resistance, perceptions of increased staff workload, and the cost of owning a smartphone or implementing the technology impede widespread sustainable utilization of mHealth technologies.
“Drawbacks such as counselor resistance and perceptions of increased staff workload, as well as the cost of owning a smartphone or implementation of the technology, impede the widespread utilization of mHealth technologies in a sustainable manner [25,26].”
From Successful Organizational Strategies to Sustain Use of A-CHESS: A Mobile Intervention for Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorders (2015) · cites this paper as [25]
Efforts to secure ongoing funding are an important issue in mHealth implementation.
“Efforts to secure ongoing funding are an important issue in mHealth implementation [25,43].”
From Successful Organizational Strategies to Sustain Use of A-CHESS: A Mobile Intervention for Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorders (2015) · cites this paper as [25]
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- Authors
- Abebe, N. A., Capozza, K. L., Des Jardins, T. R., Kulick, D. A., Rein, A. L., Schachter, A. A., & Turske, S. A.
- Affiliations
- Louisiana Public Health Institute (US)
- HealthInsight (US)
- AcademyHealth (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rein, Alison L
- ORCID
- Capozza, Korey L
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Internet Research
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2013-10-15
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- e221
- ISSN
- 1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3806518
- OpenAlex
- W2077781658
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 0.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Mobile Learning in Education
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- mobile health, text messaging, short message service, diabetes prevention, diabetes management, behavior change, program implementation challenges, provider engagement, program evaluation
- MeSH terms
- United States, Telemedicine, Text Messaging
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