Machine Learning Methods to Personalize Persuasive Strategies in mHealth Interventions That Promote Physical Activity: Scoping Review and Categorization Overview

Abstract

Background: Although physical activity (PA) has positive effects on health and well-being, physical inactivity is a worldwide problem. Mobile health interventions have been shown to be effective in promoting PA. Personalizing persuasive strategies improves intervention success and can be conducted using machine learning (ML). For PA, several studies have addressed personalized persuasive strategies without ML, whereas others have included personalization using ML without focusing on persuasive strategies. An overview of studies discussing ML to personalize persuasive strategies in PA-promoting interventions and corresponding categorizations could be helpful for such interventions to be designed in the future but is still missing.

Objective: First, we aimed to provide an overview of implemented ML techniques to personalize persuasive strategies in mobile health interventions promoting PA. Moreover, we aimed to present a categorization overview as a starting point for applying ML techniques in this field.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted based on the framework by Arksey and O'Malley and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) criteria. Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed were searched for studies that included ML to personalize persuasive strategies in interventions promoting PA. Papers were screened using the ASReview software. From the included papers, categorized by the research project they belonged to, we extracted data regarding general study information, target group, PA intervention, implemented technology, and study details. On the basis of the analysis of these data, a categorization overview was given.

Results: In total, 40 papers belonging to 27 different projects were included. These papers could be categorized in 4 groups based on their dimension of personalization. Then, for each dimension, 1 or 2 persuasive strategy categories were found together with a type of ML. The overview resulted in a categorization consisting of 3 levels: dimension of personalization, persuasive strategy, and type of ML. When personalizing the timing of the messages, most projects implemented reinforcement learning to personalize the timing of reminders and supervised learning (SL) to personalize the timing of feedback, monitoring, and goal-setting messages. Regarding the content of the messages, most projects implemented SL to personalize PA suggestions and feedback or educational messages. For personalizing PA suggestions, SL can be implemented either alone or combined with a recommender system. Finally, reinforcement learning was mostly used to personalize the type of feedback messages.

Conclusions: The overview of all implemented persuasive strategies and their corresponding ML methods is insightful for this interdisciplinary field. Moreover, it led to a categorization overview that provides insights into the design and development of personalized persuasive strategies to promote PA. In future papers, the categorization overview might be expanded with additional layers to specify ML methods or additional dimensions of personalization and persuasive strategies.

Keywords: adaptive; artificial intelligence; exercise; mobile app; recommender system; reinforcement learning; supervised learning; tailoring.

Figure 1

PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) flow diagram. ML: machine learning; PA: physical activity.

Figure 2

Proposed categorization overview as a starting point for choosing machine learning methods when implementing adaptive persuasive strategies in mobile health interventions that promote physical activity [18,19,21,22,24,25,48,51,56-58,61-67,70-73,75]. RL: reinforcement learning; RS: recommender system; SL: supervised learning; UL: unsupervised learning.