| Popis: |
Introduction Apps for vaccination are rarely a topic in scientific literature, despite the growth of interest in mobile applications about physical exercise, food intake and even chronic diseases management. Since 2014 WHO is wishing and technically supporting the development of a pan-European vaccination app to overcome the trending vaccine hesitancy, and instituted this year a Department of Digital Health. This research aims to evaluate apps for general population, and parents in particular. Methods We looked for apps from Google Play Store, the official Android store, searching single words related to vaccination with an Italian IP address, then exporting results. The research provided 1086 univocal apps that underwent a selection based on title, marketplace description and website if available, and further classified by category and other variables. Results The 117 selected apps were downloaded 15 million times in total. The most common category is vaccination reminder and recorder (41% of apps with 2.4 mln downloads - DL), alone or as a part of a broad health manager, mostly designed for parents. The second one is medical education apps (35%, 343k DL) most of which in English and designed for healthcare professionals, then games (10.3% of apps but the most downloaded with 12 mln DL), appointment makers (7.7%, 122k DL) powered by Regional Healthcare Service, and vaccination travel managers (6%, 13k DL). Only 26.5% provided both description and app content in Italian. Conclusions While literature states reminding apps may be a helpful resource to ease the completion of vaccinal duty, the n° of downloads shows a lack of interest or expose flaws in their features (e.g. absence of translation). This study also displays offer fragmentation regarding these new technological opportunities to raise vaccination awareness among peoples: neither a single Italian app is provided by the Ministry, nor a pan-European app by E.U., making WHO’s wishes even more actual today. Key messages Vaccination reminder apps are a helpful but under-utilized tool for parents, maybe due to offer fragmentation, lack of translation and need of country adaptations. The creation of a centralized information service for mobile users is a challenge for European Digital Health in times of trending vaccine hesitancy. |
