The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge is contributing its expertise to a new effort seeking to identify common measures and establish standards for the use of digital sensing data in mental health research and treatment.
The project, launched Aug. 13, 2025, is headed by the Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe). Its goal is to define a “core set” of objective digital measures for common mental health issues.
At present, there exist three primary barriers to advancing the use of digital sensors in mental health research and treatment:
- There is insufficient research demonstrating which signals are most important to track in relation to mental health.
- Tracked measures (e.g., steps, sleep) may be captured differently across devices.
- There is an absence of standards to ensure these data are defined and interpreted consistently.
“The absence of agreed-upon standards for digital sensing measures, even between devices, hampers our ability to compare findings or even build on prior work,” said DGC Director Nelson Freimer, MD. “Without a common framework, researchers and clinicians alike risk losing valuable time and resources re-building the wheel.”
The launch of the core measures project comes six months after the release of a Wellcome-funded report from DATAcc by DiMe, in collaboration with the DGC, that outlines evidence-based recommendations to drive interest, investment and direction for sensor-based digital mental health technology research and innovation.
“Our work with DATAcc by DiMe moves the field toward the consistency that will allow research to be synthesized, scaled and translated into better care,” Freimer said.
The DGC’s involvement in the core measures project builds on years of strategic activity undertaken with the goal of incorporating digital sensing into mental health research and, ultimately, treatment applications.
To read the launch announcement, visit MedCity News.
To read the Feb. 2025 report, visit DiMe’s website.
Founded in 2019, the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), host of DATAcc, is a global non-profit and professional home for all members of the digital medicine community. DiMe drives scientific progress and broad acceptance in digital medicine to enhance public health through a three-pronged approach: 1) convene and collaborate, 2) build and lead and 3) educate and advise. Visit the DiMe website.
The Digital Sensing Workshop, sponsored by Wellcome, NIMH and the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge, was held at UCLA on Feb. 28–March 2, 2023. There were five reports generated from the workshop. Workshop organizers included Nelson Freimer from UCLA, Simona Carini from UCSF, Matthew Hotopf from King’s College, David Mohr from Northwestern University and Tanzeem Choudhury from Cornell Tech. Workshop participants represented 29 different universities, businesses and organizations. Review the complete list of participants, learn more about the workshop, read the reports, or review the related publication.
