Paper: ENGAGE Framework for Digital Health Interventions
90-day retention for the average health app? Under 10%. That's what happens when the field optimizes for "engagement" as an outcome rather than a means to one. Clicks and logins are not health outcomes. Our new paper in Frontiers in Digital Health makes the case for replacing surface-level metrics with what actually matters: sustained behavior change and measurable clinical outcomes. Importantly, we offer a practical framework to get there.
Behavioral science has the tools to solve this, but in digital health, it's too often retrofitted as an afterthought rather than built in from the start. In 2026, digital health interventions are incomplete if they aren't built with behavioral science, personalization, and AI for continuous improvement. This paper is written specifically for practitioners and builders in the real world, and even includes a concrete implementation checklist.
