Abstract
The impact of technology on mental health has become a core concern for researchers and practitioners from the clinical science, public health and technology sectors. One factor that influences this impact is the large gap between the silos of technologies explicitly designed as mental health support tools and the everyday technologies that inadvertently affect mental health. Here we ground our position on findings from a workshop that brought together over 60 experts and emphasize the importance of a multi-sectoral collaboration across these silos to address the complexities of technology’s impact on mental health. Our specific recommendations include a push to align stakeholders, incentives and governance, adopting person-centered and proactive mental health evaluation, and empowering users and clinicians (and their interactions) through mental health and technology literacy. We highlight sector-specific adaptations that can support greater collaborations, toward a future in which users have consistently positive interactions between technology use and their mental health.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge all of the workshop organizers and attendees for their invaluable contributions and discussions, as well as the Microsoft Research Summit organizers for facilitating the event and providing funding for the event. The workshop was funded by the Microsoft Research Summit program. The discussions and findings presented were shaped through a collaborative process involving diverse stakeholders, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any specific organization or company, including the workshop’s funding body. The funding organization did not have any role in the interpretation of data or writing of the report, nor in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
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J. Suh, S.R.P., R.L., E.H., K.S. and E.O. wrote the drafts of the manuscript. J. Suh, S.R.P. and E.H. prepared the boxes. J.A. and G.R. prepared the figure, which was later revised by the editorial office. J. Suh, S.R.P., R.L., E.H., J.A., G.R., J. Shen, J.B., A.S., P.P., L.F., C.J., Y.B., D.C.O., S.S., T.A. and M.C. participated in the thematic analysis of the workshop discussions. All authors edited, reviewed and refined all versions of the manuscript.
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Suh, J., Pendse, S.R., Lewis, R. et al. Rethinking technology innovation for mental health: framework for multi-sectoral collaboration. Nat. Mental Health 2, 478–488 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00232-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00232-2