Labfront and Garmin Health are launching the Mental Health Research Award in conjunction with World Mental Health Day.  Our goal? To help researchers merge the cutting-edge capabilities of Garmin with Labfront's streamlined platform to push forward our understanding of mental health.

What’s amazing about the fitness bands is they give us objective measures to support what psychology has been telling us for decades. _{-Dr. Kristin Scott, Clemson University}

Why we're supporting mental health research

The World Health Organization states that approximately 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime. Not only does mental health have a profound impact on personal relationships, job performance, and overall quality of life-- it even affects the global economy. Depression and anxiety alone contribute to a staggering $1 trillion in lost productivity annually worldwide.

Yet despite its significance, much about mental health remains poorly understood. Traditional research methods have their limitations, dependent on self-reports or lab environments.

Enter wearables-- which capture objective, real-world data 24/7. This kind of data opens up avenues for research that were previously impossible or impractical to explore.

Wearables for mental health research: Turning physiological data into insights

Wrist-worn wearables such as the Garmin vívosmart® 5 can capture physiological markers like sleep and heart rate variability (HRV) that have been shown to correlate with mental states, such as depression and stress.

Heart Rate Variability

Contrary to popular belief, the heart does not constantly follow the same rhythm. The time between each heartbeat should change from beat to beat. This change is called HRV and it’s helpful for analyzing the overall well-being of an individual on a daily basis. Lower HRV is linked with depression, while elevated HRV is associated with mood enhancement, emotional regulation, and sociability.

With Garmin and Labfront, you have access to high-resolution beat-to-beat interval data, which can be used to derive this valuable metric.

Sleep

Sleep's connection to mental health is well-documented.  Wearables offer a non-intrusive and objective way to measure and track sleep patterns. They have the advantage of being worn for extended periods of time in the comfort of one's own home, making them particularly useful for measuring the effectiveness of interventions on sleep and for studies examining the impact of sleep on anxiety, stress, and depression.  

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Did You Know?

A Garmin smartwatch can be just as effective as a medical-grade actigraphic device. Check out our experiment here.

Labfront and Garmin: A Comprehensive Research Tool

While Garmin offers high-resolution physiological data like 24/7 beat-to-beat interval data and customizable actigraphy data, Labfront's platform streamlines its collection and integrates with participant management – all without the need for coding. Combine this with Labfront’s in-app questionnaires, and you have a comprehensive tool that pairs subjective insights with objective data.

Labfront Features Include:

• Participant Adherence Tracker: Real-time tracking of participants and scheduling of reminders for data integrity.
• Event Tracking: Log event timestamps for added data context, such as when participants feel certain emotions or take medications.

Mental Health Research Award

Whether you're a seasoned researcher or a budding student, we welcome your application for the Mental Health Research Award.

What’s Included?

• 5 x Garmin vívosmart® 5 fitness trackers (Value: $750): Get hands-on experience with wearables that can bring a new dimension to your research.
• 1 x Labfront Advanced package (Value: $1000):  Our platform streamlines your research, helping you to decode the intricate relationships between mental and physiological states.

In total, we're talking about $1750 in resources to support your study.

Application Details

Applications will be accepted from October 10, 2023 - November 21, 2023. To apply, provide an abstract of your research study (approx. 200 words), a personal statement (max. 200 words), and your CV.

Combining Garmin wearables and the Labfront platform gives us the opportunity to expand our understanding of mental health like never before.

So why wait? The future of mental health research could very well start with you.