Michelle Van Velthoven

University of Oxford | OX · Department of Primary Care Health Sciences

An important issue for mHealth evaluation is the lack of information for sample size calculations. To explore factors that influence sample size calculations for mHealth-based studies and to suggest strategies for increasing the participation rate. We explored factors influencing recruitment and follow-up of participants (caregivers of children) in...

We set up a collaboration between researchers in China and the UK that aimed to explore the use of mHealth in China. This is the first paper in a series of papers on a large mHealth project part of this collaboration. This paper included the aims and objectives of the mHealth project, our field site, and the detailed methods of two studies. The fie...

The use of mobile devices in healthcare, or mHealth, has the potential to play an important role in low–and middle–income countries in a wide range of areas. A particular area with great potential to improve global health is using mHealth for data collection. We propose three ideas: (i) to validate and conduct household surveys, (ii) to monitor lar...

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BACKGROUND Conducting research about people with herpes simplex virus is challenging because of poor data quality, low user engagement, and concerns around stigma and anonymity. OBJECTIVE This project aimed to improve data collection for a real-world HSV registry by identifying predictors of HSV infection and selecting a limited number of relevant...

Background Researching people with herpes simplex virus (HSV) is challenging because of poor data quality, low user engagement, and concerns around stigma and anonymity. Objective This project aimed to improve data collection for a real-world HSV registry by identifying predictors of HSV infection and selecting a limited number of relevant questio...

Background Collecting data from people with herpes simplex virus is challenging because of poor data quality, low user engagement, and concerns around stigma and anonymity. This project aimed to improve data collection for a real-world HSV registry by identifying predictors of HSV infection and selecting a limited number of relevant questions to as...

The use of real-world evidence for health care research and evaluation is growing. Mobile health apps have often overlooked potential to contribute valuable real-world data that are not captured by other sources and could provide data that are more cost-effective and generalizable than can randomized controlled trials. However, there are several ch...

Background We systematically reviewed the evidence on how primary healthcare workers obtain information during consultations to support decision-making for prescribing in low and lower middle-income countries. Methods We searched electronic databases, consulted the Healthcare Information For All network, hand searched reference lists, ran citation...

Background: Childhood obesity is a serious global issue, leading to increased medical spending on obesity-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. There is a need for health care services that link health behavior to risk factors, such as diet and physical activity, and that provide better advice and feedback to users, which...

Background: Internet of Things (IoT), or Industry 4.0, represents a smart shift to more interconnected manufacturing processes where individual entities within the supply chain communicate with each other to achieve greater flexibility and responsiveness in general manufacturing and leaner manufacturing to reduce the cost of production. IoT has be...

Background Appropriate infant and young child feeding practices are the basis for child nutrition, which can be influenced by mothers’ exposure to health promotion messages. In China, WeChat is gradually changing the channels people receive information. This paper aims to explore the feasibility of using WeChat as an intervention to improve Infant...

Background: Although there are many wearable devices available to help people lose weight and decrease the rising prevalence of obesity, the effectiveness of these devices in long-term weight management has not been established. Objective: This study aimed to systematically review the literature on using wearable technology for long-term weight...

Background: Conversational agents (also known as chatbots) have evolved in recent decades to become multimodal, multifunctional platforms with potential to automate a diverse range of health-related activities supporting the general public, patients, and physicians. Multiple studies have reported the development of these agents, and recent systema...

Objectives To ascertain the relationship between online patient feedback and the General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) and the Friends and Family Test (FFT). To consider the potential benefit it may add by describing the content of public reviews found on NHS Choices for all general practices in one Clinical Commissioning Group in England. Design...

BACKGROUND Almost a quarter or more than a fifth of children in the United Kingdom (UK) are overweight or obese by the time they start school. The UK Department of Health and Social Care has updated national policy for combating childhood obesity in 2018 (UK Department of Health and Social Care: Global Public Health Directorate: Obesity, Food and N...

Background: Almost a quarter or more than a fifth of children in the United Kingdom are overweight or obese by the time they start school. The UK Department of Health and Social Care's national policy for combating childhood obesity has critical outcomes centered on sugar and caloric consumption reduction. Health Education England has developed tw...

BACKGROUND Obesity is a large contributing factor for many non-communicable diseases and is a growing problem worldwide. Many mobile apps have been developed to help users improve their fitness and weight management behaviours. However, the speed at which apps are created and updated means that it is important to periodically assess their quality....

BACKGROUND The continuing uncertainty around Brexit has caused concern in the pharmaceutical industry and among healthcare professionals and patients. The exact consequences of Brexit on the UK pharmaceutical supply chain will depend on whether a deal is reached and what it entails, but it is likely to be affected by the withdrawal of the UK from t...

Background: Obesity is a contributing factor for many noncommunicable diseases and a growing problem worldwide. Many mobile apps have been developed to help users improve their fitness and weight management behaviors. However, the speed at which apps are created and updated means that it is important to periodically assess their quality. Objectiv...

Background: The continuing uncertainty around Brexit has caused concern in the pharmaceutical industry and among health care professionals and patients. The exact consequences of Brexit on the pharmaceutical supply chain in the United Kingdom will depend on whether a deal is reached and what it entails, but it is likely to be affected by the withd...

Comprehensive pharmacogenomic understanding requires both robust genomic and demographic data. Patient registries present an opportunity to collect large amounts of robust, patient-level data. Pharmacogenomic advancement in the treatment of infectious diseases is yet to be fully realised. Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is one disease for which pharmaco...

BACKGROUND Vaccination is a critical step to reducing child mortality; however, vaccination rates have declined in many countries in recent years. This decrease has been associated with an increase in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. The potential for leveraging mobile platforms to promote vaccination coverage has been investigated in the...

Background Vaccination is a critical step in reducing child mortality; however, vaccination rates have declined in many countries in recent years. This decrease has been associated with an increase in the outbreak of vaccine-preventable diseases. The potential for leveraging mobile platforms to promote vaccination coverage has been investigated in...

Background: An exclusive breastfeeding rate in the first 6 months of life of at least 50% is one of the six World Health Organization global nutrition targets for 2025. However, the exclusive breastfeeding rate in China is quite low and decreasing which makes it urgent to explore effective ways to reverse the current downward trend. As mobile tech...

BACKGROUND With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to deliver behavioural health interventions. The large variation in these mobile health apps - their target patient group, health behaviour, and behavioural change strategies - has resulted in a large but incohesive body of literature....

Background: With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to deliver behavioral health interventions. The large variation in these mobile health apps-their target patient group, health behavior, and behavioral change strategies-has resulted in a large but incohesive body of literature. Objec...

BACKGROUND Advanced therapies, including cell and gene therapies, have shown therapeutic promise in curing life-threatening diseases such as leukaemia and lymphoma. However, they can be complicated and expensive to deliver due to their sensitivity to environment, troublesome tissue, cell, or genetic material sourcing and complicated regulatory requ...

BACKGROUND Conversational agents have evolved in recent decades to become multimodal, multifunctional platforms that have the potential to automate a diverse range of health-related activities, supporting the general public, patients and physicians. Multiple studies have reported the development of these agents and recent systematic reviews have de...

BACKGROUND Childhood obesity is a serious global issue, leading to greater medical spending in obesity-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. There is a need for healthcare services that link health behaviour, such as diet and physical activity, to risk factors and provides better advice and feedback to users, which Internet...

BACKGROUND Infection with the Herpes Simplex Virus is common but is not well understood and stigmatised. Whilst a considerable number of people experience mild to severe physical symptoms after infection, only one sub-effective drug is available for treatment. A registry collecting real world data reported by people with the Herpes Simplex Virus co...

BACKGROUND The popularity and ubiquity of mobile apps has rapidly expanded in the past decade. With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to monitor health and deliver behavioural interventions. The large variation in these mobile health apps - their target patient group, health behaviour,...

BACKGROUND The decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccinations has resulted in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination apps can be used as a tool to promote immunization through the provision of reminders, dissemination of information, peer-support and feedback. OBJECTIVE The aim of this review is to systematically review th...

Background: The decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccinations has resulted in outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccination apps can be used as a tool to promote immunization through the provision of reminders, dissemination of information, peer support, and feedback. Objective: The aim of this review is to systematically revi...

Background: Real-world evidence (RWE) refers to observational health care data beyond clinical trial data. It holds the promise of transforming health care as a new form of evidence to support decision makers in making decisions when developing and regulating medicines. As the importance of RWE is recognized by industry and regulatory bodies, teac...

Background The popularity and ubiquity of mobile apps have rapidly expanded in the past decade. With a growing focus on patient interaction with health management, mobile apps are increasingly used to monitor health and deliver behavioral interventions. The considerable variation in these mobile health apps, from their target patient group to their...

Background Infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV) is common but not well understood. Furthermore, there remains a social stigma surrounding HSV that can have psychosocial implications for those infected. Despite many patients infected with HSV experiencing mild-to-severe physical symptoms, only one subeffective treatment is available. A regi...

Background Online customer feedback has become routine in many industries, but it has yet to be harnessed for service improvement in health care. Objectives To identify the current evidence on online patient feedback; to identify public and health professional attitudes and behaviour in relation to online patient feedback; to explore the experienc...

Introduction The National Early Warning Score is used as standard clinical practice in the UK as a track and trigger system to monitor hospitalised patients. Currently, nurses are tasked to take routine vital signs measurements and manually record these on a clinical chart. Wearable devices could provide an easier, reliable, more convenient and cos...

A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, distributed public ledger that acts as a shared and synchronized database that records cryptocurrency transactions. Despite the shift toward digital platforms enabled by electronic medical records, demonstrating a will to reform the health care sector, health systems face issues including security, intero...

Background: This paper builds on an integrated framework of digital opportunities, based on information theory that was initially proposed by Claude Shannon: 1) providers of infrastructure for transmitting information; 2) platforms, devices, and software to bundle, store and deliver others’ content; 3) original content creator); 4) platforms enabli...

Background: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have the potential to make a broader educational impact because many learners undertake these courses. Despite their reach, there is a lack of knowledge about which methods are used for evaluating these courses. Objective: The aim of this review was to identify current MOOC evaluation methods to in...

Introduction: There is a wide variety in prescribing by primary healthcare workers in low-income and middle-income countries. While there is much information available, both online and offline, there is variation in quality and relevance to different settings. Acting on incorrect or out-of-date information can lead to inappropriate prescribing and...

Background: We systematically reviewed the evidence on how primary healthcare workers obtain information during consultations to support decision-making for prescribing in low and lower middle-income countries. Methods: We searched electronic databases, consulted the Healthcare Information For All network, hand searched reference lists, ran citati...

Background: Obesity is a large contributor to preventable chronic diseases and health care costs. The efficacy of wearable devices for weight management has been researched; however, there is limited knowledge on how these devices are perceived by users. Objective: This study aimed to review user perspectives on wearable technology for weight ma...

BACKGROUND : Demands on health services across the globe are increasing due to the combined challenges of an expanding and ageing population, alongside complex comorbidities that transcend the classical boundaries of modern healthcare. To meet these challenges, we must increase the quality of care, and the efficiency with which it is delivered. Con...

Background: Demands on health services across are increasing because of the combined challenges of an expanding and aging population, alongside complex comorbidities that transcend the classical boundaries of modern health care. Continuing to provide and coordinate care in the current manner is not a viable route to sustain the improvements in heal...

BACKGROUND There are various complex reasons that influence sustainable adoption of innovations in healthcare systems. Low adoption can be caused by a lack of support from one or more stakeholders and their needs and expectations are not always considered or aligned. OBJECTIVE To identify stakeholders’ perceptions on barriers and facilitators towa...

Background: There are various complex reasons that influence sustainable adoption of innovations in health care systems. Low adoption can be caused by a lack of support from one or more stakeholders because their needs and expectations are not always considered or aligned. Objective: This study aimed to identify stakeholders' perceptions of barr...

Health apps have great potential to improve the quality of care and reduce costs, but this has not yet been achieved. Unfortunately, there are many low-quality, unsafe health apps, resulting in different types of risks. This Perspective addresses the current failure to adopt standards for the development and implementation of health apps. For each...

Introduction There is currently a lack of clear and accepted standards for the development (planning, requirement analysis and research, design and application testing) of apps for medical and healthcare use which poses different risks to developers, providers, patients and the public. The aim of this work is to provide an overview of the current s...

Background To compare text messaging and face-to-face interviews to conduct a survey on childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia. Methods Caregivers of young children able to send text messages in Zhao County in rural China were included in this crossover study. Villages (clusters) were randomized into two groups using the ratio 1:1.6 to account for an e...

BACKGROUND A blockchain is a digitized, decentralized, distributed public ledger that acts as a shared and synchronized database that records cryptocurrency transactions. Despite the shift toward digital platforms enabled by electronic medical records, demonstrating a will to reform the health care sector, health systems face issues including secur...

Objectives: To identify the self-reported behaviour of the public in reading and writing online feedback in relation to health services. Methods: A face-to-face cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of the UK population. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses were undertaken to describe and explore the use of online feedback....

Problematic smartphone use is an emerging public health problem since the launch of the first smartphone 10 years ago. In this article, pathways to problematic use of smartphones, approaches to deal with this issue and their limitations are discussed. This includes problematic use of smartphones by people who self-identify that they or their family...

Background Large investments are currently made in community–based complementary food supplement (Ying Yang Bao, YYB) programs to improve nutrition of young children in rural areas in China. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the experience and challenges of implementing YYB programs in China. We aimed to: 1) monitor distribution of YYB; 2...

INTRODUCTION Globally, health systems are struggling with reliably appraising the safety and efficacy of rapidly changing digital health interventions whilst allowing useful innovations to be rapidly adopted. Assessment and regulation of the large number of health apps should be proportional to their clinical risk, but there is large uncertainty ab...

Background Fibrin sealants are used in different types of surgery to prevent the accumulation of post-operative fluid (seroma) or blood (haematoma) or to arrest haemorrhage (bleeding). However, there is uncertainty around the benefits and harms of fibrin sealant use. Objectives To systematically review the evidence on the benefits and harms of fib...

Objective To assess the effectiveness of dietary counselling and complementary food supplements on anaemia and stunting prevalence in children aged 6–23 months. Design A controlled intervention study with measurements of height and haemoglobin levels, and cross-sectional surveys in August 2012 (baseline), 2013 (mid-term) and 2014 (end-line). Sett...

Background The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an EPI smartphone application (EPI app) on improving vaccination coverage in rural Sichuan Province, China. Methods This matched-pair cluster randomized controlled study included 32 village doctors, matched in 16 pairs, and took place from 2013 to 2015. Village doctors in the inter...

Background: Electronic medical records (EMR) offer a major potential for secondary use of data for research which can improve the safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare. They also enable the measurement of disease burden at the population level. However, the extent to which this is feasible in different countries is not well known. This stud...

To capitalise on mHealth, we need to understand the use of mobile phones both in daily life and for health care. To assess the prevalence and factors that influence usage of mobile phones by caregivers of young children. A mixed methods approach was used, whereby a survey (N=1854) and semi-structured interviews (N=17) were conducted concurrently. T...

Objective To test the effectiveness of multiple interventions on increasing the response rate of text messaging for longitudinal data collection. Methods Our cohort included 283 caregivers of children aged 6–12 months who were participating in an anemia program in rural China. Using text messages to collect data on anemia medication adherence, we c...

Objectives To obtain a general overview of infant and young child feeding practices in one rural county in China and identify current delivery channels and challenges. Design A cross-sectional study. Setting A rural county, Zhao County, in Hebei Province, China. Participants 10 clusters were first selected within each township (16 townships in tota...

The acknowledged potential of using mobile phones for improving healthcare in low-resource environments of developing countries has yet to translate into significant mHealth policy investment. The low uptake of mHealth in policy agendas may stem from a lack of evidence of the scalable, sustainable impact on health indicators. The mHealth literature...

Background: Although good progress has been achieved in expanding immunization of children in China, disparities exist across different provinces. Information gaps both from the service supply and demand sides hinder timely vaccination of children in rural areas. The rapid development of mobile health technology (mHealth) provides unprecedented op...

To assess the effect of crossing legs at the knee level on wave reflection, as measured by the augmentation index. Forty-two participants crossed their legs at the knee level (popliteal fossa over the suprapatellar bursa) in the sitting position for 12 min. One trained investigator performed the measurements before, during, and after leg crossing....