mHealth Interventions to Promote Physical Activity of Adults in Korea: Health Equity-Focused Systematic Review

Abstract

Objectives: This study systematically review the existing literatures to identify the effectiveness of physical activity promotion programs using mobile health (mHealth) among Korean adults, with a focus on factors affecting health equity.Methods: To search for studies published in the past 10 years (from January 2013 to April 2023), Korean DBs (KoreaMed, KMBASE, KISS, RISS) were used. Hedge’g values were calculated to present uniform quantitative effect estimates for each study and to present pooled effect sizes for the same variables. Additionally, GRADE was used to assess the certainty of evidence and the review was conducted using the PROGRESS-Plus framework for health equity review.Results: Of the 1,204 literatures, 15 literatures were selected. Six prevention-based mHealth interventions and nine management-based mHealth interventions had significant effect sizes on multiple physical activity-related variables. A review of the PROGRESS-Plus factors revealed that personal characteristics (age, illness), occupation, and gender were the most frequently considered factors affecting health equity, while race, ethnicity, culture, language, religion, features of relationships , and time-dependent relationships were not considered.Conclusions: The results of the current study confirm the potential of mHealth-enabled physical activity promotion interventions to manage health and prevent disease in Korean adults. It also highlights the need to consider health equity in all phases of research design, implementation, and evaluation to provide opportunities for inclusive participation of a broad range of populations.