The main objectives of the newly established DART Lab are to develop and deploy mobile health assessments and interventions for adolescent chronic pain, mental health and substance use.

Our studies combine the use of wearables and smartphone to reliably and consistently assess important outcomes in our hospital and in the patient’s natural settings. These outcomes include behavioral patterns, sleep, pain, physical mobility, gross motor activity,  and cognitive functioning. 

We specialize in:

(1) incorporating and aligning the usage of wearables, ecological momentary assessment and smartphone-based assessments of cognitive markers and important contextual information related to individualized behavioural, pain and substance use patterns in children and adolescents.

(2) using Machine Learning and Statistical Learning approaches to evaluate and predict clinical and treatment progression

(3) utilizing bioinformatic approaches to map these digital phenotypes to genotypes to guide development of novel strategies for improving pediatric clinical trial designs, patient assessment and treatment.