m-Health applications are used, for example, to help track the location of dementia patients, to allow people with diabetes to monitor their diet, for people with disabilities or environmental allergies to avoid barriers or health risks, and other purposes. The benefits of m-Health to consumers include their “portability (anywhere), immediacy (any time) and convenience (easy access)” (, p. m-Health refers to mobile applications that promote an individual’s physical and mental wellbeing. One such change is the widescale adoption of m-Health applications. The pandemic spurred innovation and changes to consumer behavior in dramatic ways. In response to the tremendous human and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments around the world sought ways to curtail the spread of the disease. Insight on consumer behavior gained from this study can guide m-Health design and promotion to aid future health crises and personal wellbeing. This chapter covers qualitative findings regarding device and application-level issues participants identified as barriers to their adoption and continued usage of the app, which are accessibility, battery life, downloading challenges, device memory, network connectivity and costs, operating system compatibility, performance issues, and usability. To investigate this, we sent an online questionnaire to over 600 participants with open-ended questions asking about their experience with one such app, ABTraceTogether. It is important to understand consumer behavior and adoption challenges based on people’s perceptions of benefits, barriers, and risks. Some of these apps can track and share user’s locations, social contacts, and health information, which sparked concerns and misperceptions about the privacy and security of user data. Most regions relied on voluntary adoption, and many failed to receive a critical mass of users. Such apps were released by over 45 international governments throughout 2020, becoming the first m-Health innovation with such widescale deployment. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic included m-Health innovations, such as contact tracing and exposure notification applications to track virus exposure.
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