ReviewJournal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA2022
The messiness of the menstruator: assessing personas and functionalities of menstrual tracking apps.
Review in Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dual-Source Retrieval-Augmented Generation Chatbot for Women's Health (HerCare): Design and Multimethod Evaluation Study.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- A Foundation Model for Capturing Complexity of Menstrual Health Data.npj women's health · 2026Article
- Decoding menstrual health across the lifespan: a scoping review of digital health tools in research.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Decoding menstrual health across the lifespan: a scoping review of digital health tools in research.npj women's health · 2026Article
- Postfeminist Healthism: Understanding the Gendering of Healthism Using Menstrual Tracking Apps as an Example.Sociology of health & illness · 2025Article
- Evaluating the Needs and Characteristics of Individuals of Low Socioeconomic Status Using Digital Health Technology to Address Health-Related Social Needs: Mixed Methods Study With Patients and Care Providers.JMIR human factors · 2025Article
- Informing the Design of Individualized Self-Management Regimens from the Human, Data, and Machine Learning Perspectives.ACM transactions on computer-human interaction : a publication of the Association for Computing Machinery · 2025Article
- An evaluation of menstrual health apps' functionality, inclusiveness, and health education information.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Motivations for Use, User Experience and Quality of Reproductive Health Mobile Applications in a Pre-Menopausal User Base: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Performance of algorithms using wrist temperature for retrospective ovulation day estimate and next menses start day prediction: a prospective cohort study.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2025Observational
- Flowing data: women's views and experiences on privacy and data security when using menstrual cycle tracking apps.Oxford open digital health · 2025Article
- The biopsychosocial perspective on designing mobile health apps for self-management of chronic headaches.Health systems (Basingstoke, England) · 2025Article
- Determinants and Assessment of Menstrual Blood Flow.Current epidemiology reports · 2023Article
- Menstruation in the USA.Current epidemiology reports · 2023Article
- Comment on "Challenging Aspects of Research on the Influence of the Menstrual Cycle and Oral Contraceptives on Physical Performance".Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2023Article
- Menstrual Tracking Mobile App Review by Consumers and Health Care Providers: Quality Evaluations Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Review
- Women's Experiences of Symptoms of Suspected or Confirmed COVID-19 Illness During the Pandemic.Nursing for women's health · 2022Article
- Informatics for sex- and gender-related health: understanding the problems, developing new methods, and designing new solutions.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- A post-phenomenological analysis of using menstruation tracking apps for the management of premenstrual syndrome.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe aim of this study was to examine trends in the intended users and functionalities advertised by menstrual tracking apps to identify gaps in personas and intended needs fulfilled by these technologies. MATERIALS AND
methodsTwo types of materials were collected: a corpus of scientific articles related to the identities and needs of menstruators and a corpus of images and descriptions of menstrual tracking apps collected from the Google and Apple app stores. We conducted a scoping review of the literature to develop themes and then applied these as a framework to analyze the app corpus, looking for alignments and misalignments between the 2 corpora.
resultsA review of the literature showed a wide range of disciplines publishing work relevant to menstruators. We identified 2 broad themes: "who are menstruators?" and "what are the needs of menstruators?" Descriptions of menstrual trackers exhibited misalignments with these themes, with narrow characterizations of menstruators and design for limited needs. DISCUSSION: We synthesize gaps in the design of menstrual tracking apps and discuss implications for designing around: (1) an irregular menstrual cycle as the norm; (2) the embodied, leaky experience of menstruation; and (3) the varied biologies, identities, and goals of menstruators. An overarching gap suggests a need for a human-centered artificial intelligence approach for model and data provenance, transparency and explanations of uncertainties, and the prioritization of privacy in menstrual trackers.
conclusionComparing and contrasting literature about menstruators and descriptions of menstrual tracking apps provide a valuable guide to assess menstrual technology and their responsiveness to users and their needs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.