Episode 11 · International

Digital mental health research insights

Lucy Cesnakova · Program Lead, Digital Medicine Society (DiME)

Mar 2025

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About this episode

Bringing research to implementation. Lucy Cesnakova from DiME shares insights from a landmark piece of research advancing digital solutions for mental health - with intentional representation across countries, income levels, and demographics. Universal commonalities, local nuances, and what builders and policy makers should take away.

Mental Health Health Data Implementation Research

“There is an immense potential for digital to aid research and care for mental health conditions, if it is done right and meaningfully.”
Lucy Cesnakova

What we cover

01Why a global research effort on digital mental health technologies was urgently needed
02Universal commonalities: sleep, physical activity, and social behaviour as cross-geography mental health determinants
03Cost and access as barriers - not just in LMICs but in high-income countries too
04Designing for real-world use: battery life, ease of use, and unobtrusive design to avoid stigmatisation
05The right intervention for the right person at the right time - why mental health is uniquely complex
06Local nuances: community, youth, prevention awareness, and education needs in LMICs
07Data privacy: universally high concern, alongside strong trust in sharing data with clinical practitioners

About the guest

Lucy Cesnakova

Program Lead, Digital Medicine Society (DiME)

Lucy Cesnakova, MS, is a Program Lead at the Digital Medicine Society (DiME). At DiME, Lucy has led several projects in the space of digital measurements and technologies for health, including a pre-competitive collaboration to advance digital measurement of nocturnal scratch, an initiative exploring sensor-based digital health technologies for mental health, and recent work on use of patient-generated health data in medical product development. She works with industry, patient organisations, regulators, clinicians, and payers to improve adoption of digital technologies in research and care.

Chapters

00:00Introduction to DiME and Lucy's work

03:57Current healthcare context

06:01Methodology of research and data collection

08:27Key findings: universal commonalities in mental health technologies

16:04Unique local insights

Transcript

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The future of AI in Global Health research

Peiling Yap & Rohit Malpani · Co-editor, AI and Global Health Journal, RSTMH

What a pleasure it was to have Rohit Malpani and Peiling Yap on the show, editors of a new journal about AI in Global health. This one is for researchers, implementers of digital and AI tools in low resource settings. We cover: The challenges for people in the so called Global South to have a leading voice in academia. Hype and reality on AI: premiums on speed to publish and oneupmanship vs investigating what really makes things work Why publishing things that went wrong or unexpectedly is needed even more How academic journals and publishing can do better How people in digital health and AI in healthcare should approach evidence generation The future of academic publishing in a world increasingly short of attention, patience and deep work How Ronny Chieng’s Harvard address can make us think critically about what we should be optimising towards. Plus what the new RSTM AI in Global Health journal is looking for and what type of papers most excite them Links! Ronny Chieng Harvard address. Seriously, watch it. IDRC funded AI4GH work mentioned by Peiling, also published in a great special collection in npj Digial Medicine Big tech hiring philosophers article Industry AI research article Conversational agents are super communicative, not super intelligent article New Video series! Finally, check out a brand new Youtube video series about Tech for Global health challenges. The first one is on Tuberculosis, with the Wellcome Trust, QureAI, AI Diagnostics, Community Health Impact Coalition and Audere. If you liked this episode, share with people who would learn from it! And head over to gpodh.org and check out a few related ones. Leave us a review or send us a message. Evaluation Level up with Shay Soremekun Implementation 101 and how to fail well with Caroline Perrin Want to sponsor a deep dive episode? Get in touch at gpodh.org

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