Journal of Medical Internet Research

New HIV cases among Malaysian men who have sex with men continue to rise, with young men who have sex with men (YMSM) accounting for 44% of new infections and experiencing high rates of comorbidities. Mobile health (mHealth) apps offer a promising approach to addressing these challenges by providing discreet access to health information, screening tools, and linkage to services. Given the near-universal smartphone ownership among Malaysian YMSM and high levels of mobile gaming engagement, gamified mHealth apps may be particularly effective in sustaining engagement and promoting HIV prevention behaviors and comorbidity management. However, realizing their full potential requires identifying the features and design principles that are most important to Malaysian YMSM and that can support sustained engagement and improve health outcomes in this vulnerable population.

Nonpharmacologic interventions are important for treating knee pain due to osteoarthritis or after total knee arthroplasty (TKA), and extended reality (XR) technology may enhance treatments for these indications.

This commentary extends recent discussion of the solidarity gap associated with patient-facing AI by examining gaps in governance and risk allocation, health care professionals’ responsibilities in practice, and opportunities for professional stewardship and advocacy. We argue that equitable implementation requires shared accountability and meaningful health care professional participation in the design, evaluation, reimbursement, governance, and oversight of patient-facing AI before ambiguity results in patient harm.

Semantic interoperability in health care, essential for seamless integration of information systems, is partially achieved through the use of terminologies and common data standards that define the semantic structure of data. Various complexities arise when using real-world health care data, including different interpretations of terms and concepts and gaps in domain coverage in standard terminologies. However, ensuring compatibility becomes increasingly challenging when big data are distributed across diverse repositories that use heterogeneous health care standards and overlapping terminologies. Ontologies are key solutions to bridge these gaps, enabling consistent semantic interoperability and data harmonization.

Patients with cancer often experience substantial fluctuations in psychological states during disease management. Traditional research tools are limited in capturing these dynamic changes in real time, constraining clinicians’ understanding of patients’ true conditions. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) enables high-frequency, real-time data collection, providing patient-reported data with greater ecological validity. However, the effectiveness of EMA studies critically depends on patient compliance, and reported compliance rates vary widely, with a lack of systematic quantitative synthesis.

In April 2026, reports of deidentified UK Biobank participant data being listed on overseas commercial online platforms highlighted concrete vulnerabilities in health data governance. In this viewpoint, we use the incident as an illustrative case to argue that traditional, trust-based, preaccess review models have ethical and operational limitations. The core concern is not data sharing, commercial involvement, or international collaboration per se, but unauthorized downstream movement of participant-contributed data beyond approved research governance into external commercial digital environments. We advance 3 key messages. First, governance should extend beyond initial access approval to continuous, proportionate stewardship across the data life cycle. Second, technical safeguards, including trusted research environments and audit logging, must be linked to institutional accountability for downstream data use. Third, public trust and social license require transparent communication, public-facing accountability, and governance mechanisms that remain responsive after access has been granted. As initiatives such as the European Health Data Space develop, legal alignment should be accompanied by operational accountability for downstream use. Continuous governance should complement, rather than replace, existing access review and research governance by maintaining proportionate oversight and accountability after access has been granted. This approach requires attention not only to technical safeguards but also to institutional responsibilities, implementation feasibility, and transparent communication with participants and publics. Health data infrastructures can sustain scientific value and public trust only when responsible data sharing is coupled with continuous, practical, and publicly accountable stewardship.

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) for abdominal cancer frequently induces muscle loss, weight loss, and malnutrition.

Problematic internet use (PIU) is an important public health concern among college students because of its associations with adverse psychological, social, and academic outcomes. Stressful life events may contribute to PIU, but previous studies have mainly relied on linear models and have rarely examined nonlinear, threshold, or plateau effects while accounting for sociodemographic and lifestyle factors.

Large language model (LLM) agents capable of generating and executing statistical code from natural language may broaden access to clinical data analysis, yet which pipeline stages they perform reliably and which require expert oversight remain poorly defined.

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) induce clinically meaningful weight loss, but their real-world impact is constrained by poor medication persistence, treatment-limiting gastrointestinal adverse effects, and rapid weight regain after cessation. These limitations may be structural rather than incidental: GLP-1 RAs powerfully address appetite biology but do not build the behavioral skills, environmental supports, and routines needed to sustain outcomes when biological pressures revert to baseline. This viewpoint argues that theory-based digital health companion programs are best understood as structural complements to glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) therapy rather than optional adjuncts, and it articulates a testable mechanistic hypothesis: a pharmacologically enabled “habit window.” We map theoretical determinants from the social cognitive theory (SCT) and behavioral economics (BE) to classes of digital intervention across 3 problems (medication persistence, tolerability, and postcessation durability) and grade the supporting evidence as established, observational, or hypothesized. For each problem, we link candidate SCT- and BE-informed mechanisms (such as self-efficacy and enactive mastery, present bias, defaults, and loss aversion) to specific digital intervention classes and to the studies needed to test them. Because reduced appetitive drive may free cognitive resources and lower the need for food-related self-control, GLP-1 therapy may open a privileged window in which habit formation is easier. Supporting evidence is drawn from adjacent behavioral trials, combined pharmacological and lifestyle trials, and observational engagement data; the observational data are hypothesis generating and subject to selection effects. Digital behavioral infrastructure may help translate the biological effects of GLP-1 therapy into durable behavioral and environmental change, but the “habit window” remains a hypothesis requiring prospective and randomized testing. We outline a research agenda prioritizing randomized trials with postcessation follow-up and mechanistic mediation studies.

Affirming care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other individuals with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities (LGBTQ+) populations refers to culturally and clinically competent health care that recognizes specific health needs and provides respectful, inclusive, equitable, and nondiscriminatory services that are supportive of diverse identities. LGBTQ+ populations face greater discrimination in health care, leading to higher levels of unmet health needs than the general population. Very few primary care practices in the United States have training for staff and clinicians on LGBTQ+ health care needs. Despite the growing need for LGBTQ+ affirming care, there are no national standards or requirements for LGBTQ+ cultural competence training for primary health care providers in the United States.

Personalized dietary counseling is central to recurrence prevention in patients with urolithiasis, particularly after a 24-hour urine metabolic evaluation. However, translating quantitative metabolic abnormalities into patient-facing, guideline-concordant, and safe dietary recommendations can be challenging in routine clinical practice. Large language models (LLMs) may assist with this task, but unguided responses may overlook key metabolic priorities or case-specific safety constraints.