The Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe), in which Depression Grand Challenge team members participated, released a report on Feb. 4, 2025, detailing evidence-based, actionable recommendations to drive interest, investment, and direction for sensor-based digital health technology research and innovation.
The report is a downstream product of the 2023 UCLA Digital Sensing Workshop, hosted at UCLA and sponsored by the DGC, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute of Mental Health. A subsequent request for proposals from Wellcome in Winter 2023 and funding in April 2024 catalyzed the formation of a consortium including DGC and DATAcc by DiMe and the consortium’s scoping research and final report.
“This report represents the next step in the two-year collaborative effort between DiMe, the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge, Wellcome, and other organizations laying the groundwork for establishing standards for the use of digital sensing in mental health research, diagnosis, and treatment,” said DGC Director Nelson Freimer, MD.
“The DGC is honored to participate in these collaborations that offer the promise to transform the field. We look forward to seeing how various stakeholders take the findings and recommendations in the report and apply them in terms of investment and practice.”
Visit DiMe’s website to read the full report and learn more about the collaboration.
Learn more about DGC’s activities in the digital sensing space.
Wellcome is the world’s first large-scale, independent research funder to prioritize mental health science at scale, with 200 million pounds ($252.6 million) dedicated to mental health science over five years, according to Miranda Wolpert, director of mental health at Wellcome. Mental health is one of three urgent global health challenges, that Wellcome wants to address in the next 30 years. Visit the Wellcome 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.
