Heterogeneity of information across seven curated national or international digital health app repositories

Viet-Thi Tran; Philippe Ravaud; Marleen Kunneman; Victor M Montori; Ngan Thi Thuy Phi

doi:10.1177/20552076261458023

Heterogeneity of information across seven curated national or international digital health app repositories

Digit Health. 2026 Jul 1:12:20552076261458023. doi: 10.1177/20552076261458023. eCollection 2026 Jan-Dec.

Authors

Viet-Thi Tran^{1

2}, Philippe Ravaud^{1

2

3}, Marleen Kunneman^{4

5}, Victor M Montori⁵, Ngan Thi Thuy Phi¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Research in Epidemiology and StatisticS (CRESS), Université Paris Citéand Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, INSERM, INRAE, Paris, France.
² Centre d'epidémiologie clinique, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), Hôpital Hôtel Dieu, Paris, France.
³ Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
⁴ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Health Campus The Hague, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁵ Knowledge and Evaluation Research Unit, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.

Abstract

Objective: Digital health applications (health apps) are increasingly integrated in clinical care. Yet the information describing these apps varies across curated app repositories supporting prescription. We aimed to identify the information items used to describe health apps in repositories; and to quantify the completeness of publicly displayed app-entry information across repositories.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of seven national or international curated health app repositories: mHealthBelgium, DiGA, AppThera, ORCHA, GGD AppStore, MIND, and AppGuide. In January 2025, we randomly selected 140 health apps, with 20 apps per repository. For each app, one reviewer extracted the publicly available information displayed in the repository entry and inductively identified the information items reported (i.e., atomic information elements used to describe apps). These information items were then grouped into categories by an expert committee. We calculated, for each repository, the median number of items reported across apps, overall and by category.

Results: Health apps were described by 32 information items grouped into 10 categories: general information, regulatory information, compatibility, costs, indication, functions, evidence, user experience, data governance and security, and change history. The median number of items reported in repositories ranged from a median of 9/32 items, IQR 9 to 11 in MIND to 27/32, IQR 26 to 28 in DiGA. Only, three repositories (AppThera, DiGA and AppGuide) systematically reported information on the evidence supporting the apps for all listed apps.

Conclusions: Curated health app repositories differed in the information items presented to clinicians and patients. Incomplete reporting of clinically relevant information, particularly evidence and data governance, may limit informed app selection and prescription. Minimum reporting standards are needed to enable safe prescription and reliable integration of health apps into clinical practice.

Keywords: digital; digital health; disease; general; health communications; public health; quantitative; studies.