SENSE-T2D risk study
Sensor-based Evaluation of Negative States and Experiences in people at elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, including prediabetes and obesity

Why do we want to better understand daily mood and mental health in people with prediabetes, obesity, or at higher risk for type 2 diabetes?

We want people with prediabetes, obesity, and at higher risk of type 2 diabetes to live as happy and healthy a life as possible. If we can better understand how behavioural, biological, and emotional factors contribute to better or worse daily mood or mental health, it will help us to understand how we can improve the daily lives of people at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. In the future, this could even help us to develop mental health interventions that are precisely tailored to people at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. To do this, we need to better understand these factors, and you could help us to do that. 

How can wearable devices help us to better understand mental health in people at with prediabetes, obesity, or at high risk for type 2 diabetes?

Wearable devices (such as smart rings, smartwatches, and continuous glucose monitors) and personal digital devices (such as smartphones) can help us to access important behavioural, physiological, and emotional information about people as they go about their daily life. Wearable rings and watches provide information on activity, sleep, and heart rate, continuous glucose monitors provide information on glucose variability, and smartphones can allow us to ask daily questions (such as, how happy do you feel right now). 

In the past, we could only get this information by asking a person in a survey or when they come to the clinic questions like “how much sleep do you feel you get in general?” This is not a very precise way of understanding how much someone sleeps each night. With new technology, we can access data on how much a person sleeps each night, how much activity they engaged in that day, and how their mood was, and then see how these factors are related. 

Importantly, these devices can record important information as a person lives their daily life, with very little needed from the participant. Other than a few pop-up questions on the smartphone app, the devices run in the background. This allows rich mental and physical health information to be collected without a lot of burden to the person. This has a lot of potential for healthcare monitoring and interventions that can reach as many people as possible.