Mobile Apps for Vaccination Services: Content Analysis and Quality Assessment

Area of Science:

• Digital Health
• Mobile Health (mHealth)
• Vaccination Services

Background:

• Public demand for vaccination services is rising.
• Mobile applications are a key tool for delivering these services.
• The characteristics and quality of existing vaccination apps are largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

• To survey commonly used vaccination service apps.
• To evaluate app quality, service content, and user experience.
• To provide guidance for users seeking vaccination apps.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Qimai Data platform to identify vaccination apps.
• Searched WeChat and Alipay for relevant applets.
• Evaluated 29 selected apps using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS).
• Assessed service content and user experience, measuring interrater reliability with the intragroup correlation coefficient.

Main Results:

• Identified 29 vaccination apps (21 independent, 4 WeChat applets, 4 Alipay applets) from over 1000 initial searches.
• Found significant differences in quality scores between independent apps and applets (P<.001).
• No significant quality differences were observed between iOS and Android platforms.
• Demonstrated good intragroup consistency among app reviewers.

Conclusions:

• The overall quality of vaccination service apps is acceptable.
• Non-independent apps (WeChat/Alipay applets) scored lower and need improvement.
• Participatory apps generally received low scores, indicating a need for enhancement.