Abstract
As digitalization is permeating all aspects of society, questions arise as to how it can be fruitfully employed to sustain the public health goals of quality, accessibility, efficiency and equity in healthcare and on how digital interventions can contribute to tackle global public health threats.
With an estimated prevalence of around 450 million people currently suffering from mental disorders and 1 in 4 people in the world affected at some point in life, mental health care and prevention is recognized by the World Health Organization as a global public health priority. In this workshop we will specifically focus on the use and impact of digital interventions in public metal health. As evidence on the impact of digital preventive interventions are accumulating in the field of mental health, we believe there is urgent need and scope: i) to present a conceptual framework that identifies when and how the different features of digitalization can support the pursue of mental health and well-being at the population and clinical level: from risk factors' identification and control, to primary and secondary prevention, to diagnosis and access to care, to compliance to treatment, ii) to retrieve, pool and critically appraise the available evidence on the adoption, application and impact of digital solutions to the above, and iii) to collect and share best practices at the European and global level that can be replicated, adapted and scaled up in different socio-demographic and epidemiological settings, for different mental health disorders and target populations. The workshop's structure and content aims at accomplishing with the above by: 1) introducing the topic of digitalization in mental health from the perspective of public health, ii) providing three original contributions on three different innovative aspects of the digitalization of public mental health (see below), iii) engaging the audience in a fruitful discussion on the data presented, stimulating the debate around current gaps in knowledge, as well as system and policy barriers to the design, implementation and evaluation of digital Interventions in public mental health. As detailed in the presentations' abstracts below, the three original contributions will, respectively focus on: 1) the current use of telemedicine for mental health care and prevention, the digital features enabling its adoption and the assessment of its impact on clinical and public health outcomes, 2) the potential offered by digital biomarkers in defining digital phenotyping so as to inform personalized prevention and care in mental health that and 3) technology and mobile health for high-risk populations with the presentation of selected best practices.
Key messages
Digital interventions are supporting mental health care and prevention in different settings. The impact of digital interventions for mental health needs to be measured.
22.C. Workshop: Digital interventions in public mental health: current impact and future directions
