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  1. Fulltext Assessing the Quality, Privacy, and Security of Breast Cancer Apps for Arabic Speakers: Systematic Search and Review of Smartphone Apps
    Alhuwail D, Alhouti A, Alsarhan L
    JMIR Cancer, 2024 Jan 16;10:e48428.
    PMID: 38227353 DOI: 10.2196/48428
    BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is a widespread disease, and its incidence is rapidly increasing in the Middle East and North Africa region. With the increasing availability of smartphone apps for various health purposes, breast cancer apps have emerged as tools for raising awareness, providing support, and empowering women affected by this disease. These apps offer many features, including information on breast cancer risk factors, self-examination guides, appointment reminders, and community support groups or hotlines. Using apps raises the risk of privacy and security issues, and we hope that examining these features of the apps will contribute to the understanding of how technology can be used to improve these apps and provide insights for future development and improvement of breast cancer apps.

    OBJECTIVE: This study aims to critically review the quality, privacy, and security of breast cancer apps available to Arabic speakers.

    METHODS: Similar to several recent studies, we used a systematic search for apps available in Google Play and Apple App stores using both the web interface and the built-in native stores installed on smartphones. The search was conducted in mid-December 2022 in Arabic using the following keywords: سرطان الثدي - فحص سرطان الثدي - علاج سرطان الثدي - مرض سرطان الثدي - أعراض سرطان الثدي - فحص الثدي (breast cancer, breast cancer treatment, breast cancer disease, breast cancer symptoms, breast cancer screening, and breast test). These preidentified search terms are based on earlier work concerning the top searched breast cancer topics by Arabic speakers through Google's search engine. We excluded apps that did not have an Arabic interface, were developed for non-Arabic speakers, were paid, needed a subscription, or were directed toward health care workers. The Mobile App Rating Scale was used to evaluate the quality of the apps concerning their engagement, functionality, aesthetics, and information. A risk score was calculated for the apps to determine their security risk factors.

    RESULTS: Only 9 apps were included, with most (6/9, 67%) being supported by advertisements and categorized as informational. Overall, the apps had low numbers of downloads (>10 to >1000). The majority of the included apps (8/9, 89%) requested dangerous access permissions, including access to storage, media files, and the camera. The average security score of the included apps was 3.22, while only 2 apps provided information about data security and privacy. The included apps achieved an overall average quality score of 3.27, with individual dimension scores of 4.75 for functionality, 3.04 for information, 3.00 for aesthetics, and 2.32 for engagement.

    CONCLUSIONS: The limited availability of breast cancer apps available to Arabic speakers should be a call to action and prompt health care organizations and developers to join forces and collaboratively develop information-rich, usable, functional, engaging, and secure apps.

  2. Fulltext Understanding mindsets, skills, current practices, and barriers of adoption of digital accessibility in Kuwait's software development landscape
    AlMeraj Z, Alhuwail D, Qadri R, Shama S, Crabb M
    Univers Access Inf Soc, 2023 Mar 11.
    PMID: 37361678 DOI: 10.1007/s10209-023-00980-5
    The responsibility for creating accessible software within the development of digital services is important for multiple reasons, mainly equity and inclusion. However, adopting and sustaining the development of accessible digital solutions has always been challenging, more so in countries that are relatively new to the concept of universal design, and physical and digital accessibility, and where legal sanctions are not yet established. This work investigates the technology scene in the State of Kuwait and analyses the responses of computing professionals with regard to their skills, best practices and procurement of accessible tech and to their level of awareness toward people with disabilities. The findings reveal a low level of awareness among tech professionals with regard to disabilities and digital accessibility-related standards. The findings also highlight a lack of available guidance for developing inclusive design and accessibility. Additionally, time constraints, lack of training, legal enforcement and fundamentals concepts during undergraduate and higher education contributed to observed weaknesses. Participants were keen to learn more and benefited from flyers and free professional development courses offered as incentives for survey completion.
  3. Fulltext Implementation and Experiences of Telehealth: Balancing Policies With Practice in Countries of South Asia, Kuwait, and the European Union
    John O, Sarbadhikari SN, Prabhu T, Goel A, Thomas A, Shroff S, et al.
    Interact J Med Res, 2022 Feb 08;11(1):e30755.
    PMID: 35133279 DOI: 10.2196/30755
    This viewpoint summarizes the discussion that occurred during the "Translating Policy to Practice in Telehealth-Lessons from Global Implementation Experiences" panel that was held virtually at Telemedicon2020, December 18-20, 2020. This panel brought together policy and implementation experts from some countries of South Asia, Kuwait, and the European Union to share their experiences in the development and implementation of telehealth standards and of the scale up of telehealth interventions within health systems. Several common themes arose from the discussion, including the significant role of people; encouragement by respective government policymakers; addressing concerns, particularly related to privacy, confidentiality, and security; and capacity building of human resources. These are discussed in turn, along with the future directions identified by the panelists, which emphasized the need for active encouragement toward the adoption and diffusion of digital health in general and of telehealth in particular. All stakeholders, ranging from governmental policymakers to common citizens, need to come together to build trusting partnerships to realize the advantages offered by telehealth.
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