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Preliminary findings from the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge’s Digital Mental Health Study were featured in a May 2, 2024, Time publication focused on the 2024 TIME100 Most Influential People in Health.

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 DMHS involved more than 3,000 participants recruited from UCLA Health and the UCLA student body. Objective measures of factors like sleep, physical activity, heart rate and daily routines were captured using digital sensing technology from iPhone, Apple Watch and sleep monitors given to each participant.

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.

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 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.

Beginning today, ELAC students who sign up for the STAND at ELAC program have the option of enrolling in the STAND at ELAC research studies and earning up to $275 for their participation.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge was awarded a five-year, $12 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to expand its STAND system of care, with a focus on reaching more California community college students.

After successfully completing two pilot studies, today is the launch of the final or main study phase of the Digital Mental Health Study, involving more than 3,000 participants recruited from UCLA Health and the UCLA student body.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge was one of twelve organizations selected as a performer for the Wellcome-Leap Multi-Channel Psych program. The program aims to develop better understanding about anhedonic depression, a severe and inhibitive kind of depression which affects the ability to feel pleasure or enjoyment.