[[White-House-Report-on-Mental-Health-Research-Priorities.pdf]] "2. Understanding and leveraging digital mental health interventions There has been explosive growth in digital health platforms for a variety of mental health challenges and disorders in the past five years, with varying degrees of evidence supporting their efficacy. Digital mental health interventions are treatments provided via digital platforms, such as smartphones, websites, and virtual reality systems, that aim to improve mental health and deliver treatment on their own or in combination with other types of interventions. While the potential to provide mental health treatment at a population level via digital approaches is enormous, there is a need for more research across a variety of mental health conditions and topics to understand more about the safety, effectiveness, and scalability of these interventions.1 Developing and assessing digital mental health interventions There is a need for both the development of new interventions—innovative digital health technologies intended to promote mental health, improve early identification and diagnosis, treat and manage mental health conditions, or promote recovery—as well as research that evaluates and improves the safety, effectiveness, usability, accessibility, and scalability of existing digital mental health interventions. Researchers should pay particular attention to the regulatory requirements for digital health medical devices and should reference tools provided by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Digital Health Center of Excellence. It is also critical to conduct research that assesses whether use of these interventions leads to increased health equity and availability of affordable and effective mental health treatment for racially and ethnically diverse groups, individuals limited by language or cultural barriers, sexual and gender minorities, lowincome persons, individuals living in rural areas or in other areas where broadband access may be limited, and individuals of all ages, though particularly youth. Additionally, digital mental health interventions should be developed and provided in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner in alignment with the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) in Health and Health Care. Developing digital data standards. Overlaying the need for additional research on digital mental health tools is the need to create data standards. Currently, data is not integrated across platforms and the effectiveness of different digital mental health interventions cannot be compared. For example, data from two different smartphone-based activity trackers will often use different units of measurement and each tracker will interpret acquired data differently. Without standards for measuring and interpreting digital data, neither researchers, clinicians nor patients can determine if the data are credible or meaningful. Given that smartphones can generate millions of data points per person per day, the development, implementation, and adoption of clearly defined digital mental health standards are critical. These standards should also include a focus on safeguarding privacy and security for the user along with clear messaging and transparency to allow appropriate consent from users." [Digital Health Center of Excellence | FDA](https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/digital-health-center-excellence) [Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services - Think Cultural Health (hhs.gov)](https://thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/clas)