CREST.BD has been awarded a major 3-year $635,000 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) project grant for ‘Bipolar Bridges: A Digital Health Innovation Targeting Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder’. The project will build on CREST.BD’s digital health work to develop a new mobile app – Bipolar Bridges – which will take advantage of advances in online technologies (e.g., blockchain) to provide a secure and safe interface where people with bipolar disorder are in (more) control of their own health data.

The app will be co-designed with diverse people with bipolar disorder with the aim of creating a tool which will allow users to synergistically combine and learn from different forms of online self-management, treatment, physical and social data (e.g., medication use, sleep quality, mood variability, activity levels). Bipolar Bridges will also build a machine learning platform to test what factors predict quality of life (QoL) over time in people with bipolar disorder.

Principal Investigators Dr. Erin Michalak and Dr. Steven Barnes

The project will be co-led by Dr. Erin Michalak and Dr. Steven Barnes, joined by 10 members of the CREST.BD team, including: Dr. Greg Murray, Dr. Raymond Lam, Dr. Colin Depp, Dr. Rachelle Hole, Dr. Martin Provencher, Dr. Lakshmi Yatham, Dr. Roumen Milev, Dr. Emma Morton, Sara Lapsley, and Ryan Tine. Their application was top-ranked in their CIHR committee with a reviewer score of 4.6 out of 5.

Partner organizations supporting the project include Hope + Me – Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments (CANMAT), Revivre, Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI), HeadsUpGuys, Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), BC SUPPORT Unit, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Digital Hub for Mental Health.

Congratulations one and all!

Partner organizations for Bipolar Bridges