Digital Technologies and Health Research

The Young and Well program is a fairly well-funded research institution in Australia. Their program is to "Explore the role of technologies in improving young people’s mental health and wellbeing."

They have three research programs:

Safe and Supportive (led by Phillippa Collin- UWS)

Connected and Creative (led by Amanda Third - UWS)

User-Driven and empowered (led by Lena Sanci - University of Melbourne).

They have a good "news" section, with things like: 

• hosting an "online discussion with young people about suicide prevention in social media" 
• an "online campaign targeting Australian teenagers, drawing attention to the consequences of thoughtless and hurtful use of social media and empowering them to act with respect online"
• a discussion about the "best online tools to help young people improve their mental health"
• a focus on "tackling young men's mental health through technology"

The Centre for Mental Health Research at ANU is also doing some good work with Digital Technologies. Kylie Bennett is the Development Manager. 


Here is a paper on "Young Men, Mental Health, and Technology: Implications for Service Design and Delivery in the Digital Age" coauthored buy members of the Young and Well research team and published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Here is another article from the same journal entitled "Increasing Physical Activity with Mobile Devices: A Meta-Analysis".

The Cochrane Library just published a review of mobile messaging-based smoking cessation interventions. For further commentary on mobile apps for smoking cessation see this report from "mobile health news".

The Australian Men's Health program, "The Shed" has gone online.

Here is a guide to health- related tracking apps (mostly fitness) called "The Quantified Self".

Here is a discussion about the newest mobile application from National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2). Designed for those experiencing post-combat stress, “Positive Activity Jackpot,” available for Android systems, helps users creatively plan fun activities using “pleasant events scheduling,” a behavioral health therapy used to help regulate emotions and cope with stress. In short, it "encourages you to get moving"

There is also a new journal called "Journal of Mobile Technology in Medicine" - although this seems to be aimed more at Physicians.

(The Medecine 2.0 conference takes place next year in London).

For more general (non-heath orientated) journals on the Digital Humanities, Digital Humanities Quarterly and Journal of Digital Humanities are probably the most relevant. Some people also cite Literary and Linguistic Computing and Digital Studies / Le champ numérique, although these last two are getting pretty technical.

On a non-digital, health-related issue, a link for "Australia's domestic response to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health report "Closing the gap within a generation" can be found here.