Mobile Health Technology Acceptance Among Older Adults

Mobile health (mHealth) technologies—encompassing smartphone apps, wearable sensors and remote monitoring platforms—offer significant promise for supporting self-management of chronic conditions, fostering healthy behaviours and reducing healthcare costs. However, older adults often face unique barriers to adoption, including lower digital literacy, concerns over data privacy, age-related impairments and a persistent digital divide. Key determinants of acceptance include perceived usefulness (belief that a device will improve health outcomes), perceived ease of use (confidence in handling the technology), self-efficacy (belief in one’s capacity to learn new tools), trust in data security and social support from family or healthcare professionals. Design features that accommodate age-related changes—such as adjustable text size, simplified navigation and multimodal feedback—can mitigate usability challenges. Education and hands-on training interventions further enhance confidence and intention to adopt. Globally, contexts vary: in high-income settings, wearable devices for cardiovascular monitoring have gained traction, whereas in low-resource regions, simplified SMS-based programmes address medication adherence. Understanding the interplay of individual factors (health status, digital skills), technological attributes (interface design, interoperability) and environmental influences (health policy, service accessibility) is essential to tailor mHealth solutions that older adults will adopt and continue to use.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have employed large-scale surveys and longitudinal trials to explore drivers of long-term engagement with mHealth among older adults. One investigation modelled the effects of adaptive user interfaces, demonstrating that age-adaptive font sizes and context-aware prompts increased daily use of activity-tracking apps by over 30 per cent. A field experiment integrating peer-mentoring into remote monitoring programmes found that pairing new users with trained older peers led to higher adherence to telehealth check-ins and greater self-reported confidence in managing health metrics. These works underscore that personalised interfaces and social facilitation strategies can overcome steep learning curves and bolster sustained adoption in later life.

Mobile Health Technology Acceptance Among Older Adults publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in mobile health technology acceptance among older adults across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

mHealth: Delivery of health services and information via mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and wearable sensors.

Perceived usefulness: The degree to which a user believes that using a particular system will enhance their health management or quality of life.

Perceived ease of use: The extent to which an individual expects that using the technology will be free of effort, influencing initial and ongoing adoption.

Self-efficacy: A person’s belief in their own ability to learn, use and troubleshoot new digital health tools successfully.

Digital divide: The gap between individuals or groups in terms of access to, skills with, and utilisation of information and communication technologies.

References

1. Digital health platforms for the elderly? Key adoption and usage barriers and ways to address them. Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2023).
2. Patient Acceptance of Self-Monitoring on a Smartwatch in a Routine Digital Therapy: A Mixed-Methods Study. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (2023).
3. Technology Acceptance in Mobile Health: Scoping Review of Definitions, Models, and Measurement. Journal of Medical Internet Research (2020).
4. Determinants of the intention to use e-Health by community dwelling older people. BMC Health Services Research (2015).