Maddalena Fiordelli*, Institute of Communication and Health, University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland Nicola Diviani*, Amsterdam School of Communication Research / ASCoR, Amsterdam, Netherlands Peter J Schulz, Institute of Communication and Health, University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland Track: Research Presentation Topic: Health disparities Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2014-08-28

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Background: The complex interaction between behavioral and psychosocial factors in explaining health disparities has been widely documented in the literature. Among the psychosocial factors, social isolation constitutes nowadays one of the biggest issues of the industrialized world, and is recognized as a major risk factor for a wide range of negative health outcomes, being compared even with cigarette smoking. Increasing levels of social isolation are the result of both societal and individual factors. At a societal level, its premises lay in the increasing aging population and in the individualization of the society, resulting in more and more people living alone. Individual factors contributing to social isolation are the loss of a loved one, a poor level of physical health, suffering from a mental illness, one’s geographical location or other logistic problems. mHealth has shown to have a potential positive impact on a variety of behavioral and psychosocial factors and, as a consequence, on overall health. Although mobile phone characteristics (e.g., personal, intelligent, connected, always with people) seem particularly suitable to address issues related to social isolation, so far its impact on this specific field has not been systematically investigated.
Objective: The objective of this paper is to systematically review the existing literature describing the impact of mobile interventions on social connectedness in order to identify possible ways to use mHealth to address social isolation and the related health disparities.
Methods: Seven electronic databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, CINAHL, Communication and Mass-media Complete, Cochrane library, and ACM digital library) were systematically searched for peer-reviewed publications describing mobile interventions aimed at different purposes, but including social connectedness among their outcomes (primary or secondary).
Results: Included articles showed that the main focus of mobile interventions is on young adults, on people with mental or additive disorders, or on people who need to self-manage their chronic condition. Even if social isolation was never the core interest of the research, encouraging findings indicate that the use of mobile in those specific populations successfully increased social connectedness. Nevertheless the impact of mobile interventions on the population that is at higher risk for social isolation, namely older adults after retirement age, was never explored.
Conclusion: Mobile devices have the potential to become an essential tool for facing social isolation, and these findings are indicating a field whose importance has been so far underestimated. Research on elderly population and systematic interventions with social connectedness as a primary outcome could reveal a promising area for mHealth.