Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Assessing The Public Health Impact Of The Mhealth App Business, Nicholas Freudenberg

Publications and Research

Do mobile health applications (mHealth apps) promise solutions to such pressing public health problems as increasing access to care, reducing inequalities in health, lowering health care costs, and providing people with new tools to reduce risky behavior and manage chronic diseases? To answer this question, public health professionals and researchers need to examine how the more than 259 000 mHealth apps now available in the US market contribute to improved population health now and will in the future.

In this issue of AJPH, Grundy et al. (p. 1783) provide evidence that may temper the often uncritically enthusiastic response to …

Countermarketing Alcohol And Unhealthy Food: An Effective Strategy For Preventing Noncommunicable Diseases? Lessons From Tobacco, P. Christopher Palmedo, Lori Dorfman, Sarah Garza, Eleni K. Murphy, Nicholas Freudenberg

Publications and Research

Countermarketing campaigns use health communications to reduce the demand for unhealthy products by exposing motives and undermining marketing practices of producers. These campaigns can contribute to the prevention of noncommunicable diseases by denormalizing the marketing of tobacco, alcohol, and unhealthy food. By portraying these activities as outside the boundaries of civilized corporate behavior, countermarketing can reduce the demand for unhealthy products and lead to changes in industry marketing practices. Countermarketing blends consumer protection, media advocacy, and health education with the demand for corporate accountability. Countermarketing campaigns have been demonstrated to be an effective component of comprehensive tobacco control. This review …