Comment in Nature Mental Health

Summary

This comment explores new approaches to enrich large-scale population data, including incorporating macro-environmental and digital health measures.

Large population cohorts have transformed biomedical research by providing data for a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. Mental health investigations analyzing population data are often limited by restricted behavioral and psychopathological assessments, a necessary consequence of the broad coverage of large cohorts. Here we propose ways to enrich existing large cohort datasets with macro-environmental information and enhance them using digital health tools. This strategy enables refined mental health investigations in real life conditions, taking the effects of global environmental challenges on brain and behavior into acount.