Health and fitness apps are all the rage at the moment, but do they actually help us live healthier lives?

Note: This article was originally published in TechCrunch on Feb 10, 2016.

Across most developed economies, healthcare costs are rising faster than inflation. In the U.K., the National Health Service (NHS) faces an estimated funding gap of £30 billion by 2020. In the U.S., the situation looks more bleak, with total annual healthcare spending surpassing $3.8 trillion, representing an astonishing 17.4 percent of the country’s total GDP.

A key cause of the rise in healthcare spending lies in the spiraling costs of treating preventable chronic diseases (such as obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer), which account for 88 percent of total healthcare spending. This figure isn’t surprising when you consider that approximately half of all adults in the U.S. have one or more chronic conditions. More worryingly, seven of the top 10 causes of deaths occur as a result of preventable chronic diseases, with cigarette smoking alone accounting for 480,000 deaths in the U.S. every year.

These facts suggest that many of the key healthcare challenges of the twenty-first century lie in how we tackle chronic disease. This article will explore the role of mobile technologies in meeting these challenges, why they have failed to do so until now and what a solution might look like in the future.

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