MindTech researchers attended a conference on internet interventions recently, sharing aspects of their work with an international audience in Pittsburgh, USA.
Dr Jen Martin, Dr Camilla Babbage, and Dr Jake Andrews attended the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions (ISRII) 2022 conference in Pittsburgh, USA. ISRII is the largest international conference on internet interventions, with a strong focus on apps and online services to support mental health.
The conference took place from 19-21 September, with pre-conference workshops held the day before. It attracted researchers and digital health companies from countries across the world, with contributors from Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Spain, Germany, Lithuania, Italy, the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, and the US, among others.
Jake attended a masterclass workshop on machine learning for mental health, which explained how some popular techniques in machine learning worked and what their applications to mental health might be. Camilla joined the workshop ‘Optimizing digital interventions using a multiphase optimization strategy’, a framework that considers the affordability, scalability, and efficiency of interventions, rather than just their effectiveness.
Keynote presentations discussed the current state of affairs in digital mental health, with Dr Thomas Insel (Vanna Health, USA) explaining that we have only just finished ‘Act 1’ in the digital mental health era, and that ‘Acts 2 and 3’ will take place over the next ten years, when we will start to see much more effective interventions and monitoring tools implemented in mainstream healthcare.
Jake and Camilla both presented at the conference, with Jake presenting on a Delphi study conducted as part of the RADAR-CNS (radar-cns.org) project. The findings from this Delphi study set out clinicians’ views on priority use cases for smartphones and wearable technologies in remotely measuring symptoms of mental and neurological health conditions.
Camilla’s presentation looked at how stakeholders, such as educational and mental health professionals and young people, believed a serious self-help game for children and adolescents with low mood (SPARX) should be implemented in the UK, and considered where SPARX should be accessed, who should access SPARX, and if SPARX or serious games are acceptable to young people.
The hosts of the conference were the University of Pittsburgh’s digital health group, the Center for Research on Behavioral Health, Media, & Technology. The conference offered ample opportunities for networking, sharing knowledge with peers, and developing relationships for potential new collaborations in future. The next ISRII conference will be held in 2024 in Limerick, Ireland.