Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.

This paper focuses on the evaluation and recommendation of healthcare applications in the mHealth field. The increase in the use of health applications, supported by an expanding mHealth market, highlights the importance of this research. In this study, a data set including app descriptions, ratings...

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Main Authors: Hafsat Morenigbade, Tareq Al Jaber, Neil Gordon, Gregory Eke
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319828
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author Hafsat Morenigbade
Tareq Al Jaber
Neil Gordon
Gregory Eke
author_facet Hafsat Morenigbade
Tareq Al Jaber
Neil Gordon
Gregory Eke
author_sort Hafsat Morenigbade
collection DOAJ
description This paper focuses on the evaluation and recommendation of healthcare applications in the mHealth field. The increase in the use of health applications, supported by an expanding mHealth market, highlights the importance of this research. In this study, a data set including app descriptions, ratings, reviews, and other relevant attributes from various health app platforms was selected. The main goal was to design a recommendation system that leverages app attributes, especially descriptions, to provide users with relevant contextual suggestions. A comprehensive pre-processing regime was carried out, including one-hot encoding, standardisation, and feature engineering. The feature, "Rating_Reviews", was introduced to capture the cumulative influence of ratings and reviews. The variable 'Category' was chosen as a target to discern different health contexts such as 'Weight loss' and 'Medical'. Various machine learning and deep learning models were evaluated, from the baseline Random Forest Classifier to the sophisticated BERT model. The results highlighted the efficiency of transfer learning, especially BERT, which achieved an accuracy of approximately 90% after hyperparameter tuning. A final recommendation system was designed, which uses cosine similarity to rank apps based on their relevance to user queries.
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institution Kabale University
issn 1932-6203
language English
publishDate 2025-01-01
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
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series PLoS ONE
spelling doaj-art-ed0ddd4856a74c19bcddabdd3e5005432025-08-20T03:47:45ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01203e031982810.1371/journal.pone.0319828Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.Hafsat MorenigbadeTareq Al JaberNeil GordonGregory EkeThis paper focuses on the evaluation and recommendation of healthcare applications in the mHealth field. The increase in the use of health applications, supported by an expanding mHealth market, highlights the importance of this research. In this study, a data set including app descriptions, ratings, reviews, and other relevant attributes from various health app platforms was selected. The main goal was to design a recommendation system that leverages app attributes, especially descriptions, to provide users with relevant contextual suggestions. A comprehensive pre-processing regime was carried out, including one-hot encoding, standardisation, and feature engineering. The feature, "Rating_Reviews", was introduced to capture the cumulative influence of ratings and reviews. The variable 'Category' was chosen as a target to discern different health contexts such as 'Weight loss' and 'Medical'. Various machine learning and deep learning models were evaluated, from the baseline Random Forest Classifier to the sophisticated BERT model. The results highlighted the efficiency of transfer learning, especially BERT, which achieved an accuracy of approximately 90% after hyperparameter tuning. A final recommendation system was designed, which uses cosine similarity to rank apps based on their relevance to user queries.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319828
spellingShingle Hafsat Morenigbade
Tareq Al Jaber
Neil Gordon
Gregory Eke
Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
PLoS ONE
title Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
title_full Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
title_fullStr Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
title_short Evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations.
title_sort evaluating and implementing machine learning models for personalised mobile health app recommendations
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319828
work_keys_str_mv AT hafsatmorenigbade evaluatingandimplementingmachinelearningmodelsforpersonalisedmobilehealthapprecommendations
AT tareqaljaber evaluatingandimplementingmachinelearningmodelsforpersonalisedmobilehealthapprecommendations
AT neilgordon evaluatingandimplementingmachinelearningmodelsforpersonalisedmobilehealthapprecommendations
AT gregoryeke evaluatingandimplementingmachinelearningmodelsforpersonalisedmobilehealthapprecommendations