New Media for Health Education: A Revolution in Progress

Health education researchers have continued to explore creative new ways to leverage the Internet and diverse new media applications to increase the efficacy of their interventions. The number of new media and health education studies continues to grow, as does the number of manuscripts related to new media that are submitted to "Health Education & Behavior." In this issue, five articles were selected to be published together as a "theme section" on the topic of New Media for Health Education. These articles explore many of the most popular new media channels available for health education research and practice today, including smartphone apps, mobile-based text messages, web-based tailored messages, and video games. Together, these articles provide a state-of-the-art snapshot of health education and new media in 2013. These articles are: (1) "Apps of Steel: Are Exercise Apps Providing Consumers with Realistic Expectations? A Content Analysis of Exercise Apps for Presence of Behavior Change Theory," Cowan et al. (2013)); (2) "Design, Development, and Formative Evaluation of a Smartphone Application for Recording and Monitoring Physical Activity Levels: The 10,000 Steps 'iStepLog'," Kirwan, Duncan, Vandelanotte, and Mummery (2013); (3) "User Preferences for a Text Message-Based Smoking Cessation Intervention," Bock, Heron, Jennings, Magee, and Morrow (2013); (4) "Can a Website-Delivered Computer-Tailored Physical Activity Intervention be Acceptable, Usable, and Effective for Older People?" Ammann, Vandelanotte, de Vries, and Mummery (2013); and (5) "Using Active Video Games for Physical Activity Promotion: A Systematic Review of the Current State of Research," Peng, Crouse, and Lin (2013). In sum, the first three articles demonstrate the growing emphasis on mobile phone--based health interventions (also known as mHealth) through the use of apps and SMS, whereas the last two articles focus on the significant,but not yet realized promise, of web-based tailored interventions and video games for health promotion. (Contains 1 figure.)