Depression Grand Challenge

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge achieved a significant milestone on April 30, 2024, when the Digital Mental Health Study (DMHS) completed data collection, 26 months after starting.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge is part of a consortium tapped by Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, to conduct a scoping research project on digital sensing for mental health research.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge collaborated with a consortium led by The Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) to submit a proposal to Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, for the opportunity to conduct scoping research to assess how digital sensing technologies may be leveraged to detect and treat mental health conditions.

 Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, issued a request for proposals to extend the work of the digital sensing workshop, hosted at UCLA and co-sponsored by Wellcome and the National Institute of Mental Health in March 2023.

When UCLA introduced an important new health resource this year for its students, Be Well Bruin, which included the STAR program as a key resource, the STAND program reached an important milestone — integration of the program into campus operations.

Elaine Hsiao, PhD, director of the UCLA Goodman–Luskin Microbiome Center and an expert on the ways in which the gut microbiome influences neurobiology, has been awarded funding by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to lead a new maternal mental health research study.

Leading mental health and computer science researchers, industry experts, advocates and funders who participated in the Digital Sensing Workshop held at UCLA in the winter of 2023 are seeking additional review and input from colleagues and other stakeholders for a shared vision, common standards and recommendations they created to facilitate the use of digital sensing technologies in mental health research.

More than 20,000 people have enrolled in the UCLA Depression Research Registry, which improves and streamlines longstanding obstacles to recruiting participants for medical research. The registry is now expanding outreach to invite all Angelenos.

More than 50 leading mental health and computer science researchers, industry experts, advocates and funders from six countries came together at UCLA Feb. 28 – Mar. 2, 2023 to collaborate on a shared vision and common goals for digital sensing technologies in mental health research.

The Depression Grand Challenge team served as host of the second semi-annual meeting of researchers involved with the MCPsych program funded by Wellcome Leap from Nov. 3-4, 2022.