Spatio-temporal determinants of mental health and well-being: advances in geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA)

Abstract

PurposeOverview of geographically explicit momentary assessment research, applied to the study of mental health and well-being, which allows for cross-validation, extension, and enrichment of research on place and health.MethodsBuilding on the historical foundations of both ecological momentary assessment and geographic momentary assessment research, this review explores their emerging synergy into a more generalized and powerful research framework.ResultsGeographically explicit momentary assessment methods are rapidly advancing across a number of complimentary literatures that intersect but have not yet converged. Key contributions from these areas reveal tremendous potential for transdisciplinary and translational science.ConclusionsMobile communication devices are revolutionizing research on mental health and well-being by physically linking momentary experience sampling to objective measures of socio-ecological context in time and place. Methodological standards are not well-established and will be required for transdisciplinary collaboration and scientific inference moving forward.

Annual Research Review: Ecological momentary assessment studies in child psychology and psychiatry

“…Other studies examining risk processes for adolescent substance use in everyday life have used smartphones to pair GPS technology with EMA self‐reports to draw inferences about the social, contextual, and temporal nuances of adolescent problem behavior. For example, EMA via smartphone surveys plus geospatial technology (e.g., GPS and geographic information systems) have spawned a subtechnique called geographic EMA (GEMA; Epstein et al, ; Kirchner & Shiffman, ), which shows high spatial accuracy and little evidence that adolescent characteristics or neighborhood features are associated with inaccuracy in geographic readings (Mennis, Mason, Ambrus, Way, & Henry, ). Using GEMA, Byrnes et al () examined links between spatial context and adolescents' problem behavior among 170 youth ages 14–16 who completed EMAs on weekends for a month on GPS‐enabled smartphones.…”

Geospatial Approaches to Cancer Control and Population Sciences

“…Such studies could measure exposure across key time points during the life-course as part of the exposome paradigm (29–32) and integrate various types of data sources to measure environmental and community contexts at work, life, and play (33). A geographic information system (GIS) is ideally suited to integrate various types of data across multiple levels, recognizing that specific challenges need to be overcome related to ‘big data’ issues particularly when using small geographic areas and a life-course perspective, particularly when using ecological momentary assessment (34). …”

Mining spatial associations between daily activities and health using EMA–GPS data

“…walkability) on health. Kirchner and Shiffman (2016) provide an excellent review on advances in using GEMA toward understanding spatio-temporal determinants of mental health and well-being.…”