[Public health accessible to all: use of smartphones in the context of healthcare in Italy].

Recent statistics suggest that Italy is the first country in Europe for number of smartphone owners and it is foreseeable that these technological tools will play a key role in health care. In order to examine the main Italian applications for smartphones dealing with disease prevention, health education and health promotion, an extensive research was performed through the main search engines and the results were analyzed critically in order to select the best experiences available. The main applications developed covered the following macro-areas: lifestyles (nutrition, diet and physical activity), self-diagnosis and self-treatment, management of infectious and chronic degenerative diseases.