Usage analysis of real-world panel data · 2019

Objective User Engagement With Mental Health Apps: Systematic Search and Panel-Based Usage Analysis

Baumel A, Muench F, Edan S, Kane JM

What it found

Across popular mental-health apps, the median share of installed users who opened the app on a given day was 4%. Peer-support apps did best (17%), breathing-exercise apps worst (1.6%).

Where the evidence stops

Usage data only; says nothing about whether the apps helped the people who used them.

How it shapes Pursue

Pursue

The base rate Pursue designs against: most people stop opening most wellbeing apps. One useful moment matters more than daily habit.

A design input, not evidence that Pursue works.

Cited in

  1. 01Do reminder apps change what people do, or just how often they open the app?Often only the second. In a six-month University of Michigan trial with 287 adults with high blood pressure (Golbus et al., 2026), notifications made people use the app more but did not raise steps in the next hour or improve food choices the next day. Opening an app is engagement, not benefit.Engagement is not benefit

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