Mobile Devices Linked To Better Health

More than 6 billion people worldwide (including almost 400 million in the United States) now carry mobile phones, which could be used to enhance mental and physical health, a Cornell researcher proposed.

Phones can give owners important information about their environment, offer advice and reminders to encourage healthy behavior and supply mountains of data to researchers, said Deborah Estrin, professor of computer science at Cornell NYC Tech in New York City.

Estrin outlined her vision for "mobile health" in the presentation "Transforming Health Care Through Mobile Platforms," part of the symposium Smart Phones, Smart Devices, Social Networks, and Smart Health Care, at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The symposium, chaired by Google vice president Vinton Cerf, explored how emerging "net-centric societies" will transform the health care landscape...