Here is a sneak peek into Chapter 7 of our new book Digital Therapeutics for Mental Health and Addiction: The State of the Science and Vision for the Future (Elsevier Link):

Adapting Just-in-time interventions to vulnerability and receptivity

Inbal Nahum-Shani (a), David W. Wetter (b), Susan A. Murphy (c,a)

(a) Data-Science for Dynamic Decision-making Center (d3c), Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, (b) Center for Health Outcomes and Population Equity (HOPE), Department of Population Health Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, (c) Department of Statistics, Computer Science, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts

Advances in mobile and sensing technologies offer many opportunities for delivering just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAIs)—interventions that use dynamically changing information about the individual’s internal state and context to recommend whether and how to deliver interventions in real-time, in daily life. States of vulnerability to an adverse outcome and states of receptivity to a just-in-time intervention play a critical role in the formulation of effective JITAIs. However, these states are defined, operationalized, and studied in various ways across different fields and research projects. This chapter is intended to (a) clarify the definition and operationalization of vulnerability to adverse outcomes and receptivity to just-in-time interventions; and (b) provide greater specificity in formulating scientific questions about these states. This greater precision has the potential to aid researchers in selecting the most suitable study design for answering questions about states of vulnerability and receptivity to inform JITAIs.