Definition of mHealth
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mHealth as the use of mobile
and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives. Since
mHealth is most suitably understood as a tool for strengthening health systems
and promoting healthy behaviors, the word “support” in this definition is a key
term (World Health Organization, 2011).
mHealth is part of
the larger field of eHealth. It refers to using mobile’s phone functions, such
as voice, SMS, GPS, Bluetooth and mobile telecommunications systems, to achieve
health-related outcomes (World Health Organization, 2011).
Data shows that
starting with 2014, almost half of the global population was using some form of
mobile communications (World Health Organization, 2015), and by 2025 is
forecasted to have over 7 billion smartphone users in the world (Bankmycell, 2021).