Given the ubiquity of access to digital technologies worldwide, digital tools allow for the examination of health behavior and clinical trajectories within-individuals through intensive collection of individual-level, real-time data collected via surveys on mobile device (referred to as Ecological Momentary Assessment [EMA]), wearable sensors (on smartphones and/or smartwatches), and mapping digital footprints. Digitally-derived data allow for the development of dynamic models of health behavior to understand behavior in real-time and in response to changing environmental, social, physiological, and intrapersonal factors.

As applied to persons with opioid use disorder (OUD), digital data that offers ongoing assessment of behavior as individuals live their daily lives can help us better understand the trajectory of clinically important behaviors (e.g., treatment retention; medication adherence over time; opioid use) and identify fluctuating contextual factors that greatly influence such behaviors, (e.g., patterns leading to relapse or treatment dropout).

Full project details: https://www.c4tbh.org/active-project/harnessing-digital-health-technologies-and-analytics-to-understand-clinical-trajectories-of-individuals-with-opioid-use-disorder-in-buprenorphine-treatment/