Use of mobile apps designed to support and reinforce health behaviors or decrease risk behaviors is expected to continue to increase, but the success rates of apps in enabling and sustaining desired health behaviors varies.1  Therefore, it is important for clinicians to be skilled in evaluating behavior change techniques (BCTs) in mobile health apps.1 

In the last Technology Today column, we discussed the increasing challenges in health care involving behavior-related disease and mortality and the need to reverse this trend by changing individual behaviors.2  We focused on the evolution of patient education to mobile apps that use BCTs in order to improve health outcomes.2  Underlying theories of behavior change were included, along with a discussion of different types of BCTs.2  This column extends the discussion on BCTs in mobile health apps to include how to evaluate apps in order to select and use the best...

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