Sarah Goodday

I am a social, psychiatric and digital epidemiologist and am currently Lead Scientist at 4YouandMe (www.4youandme.org), a non-profit that conducts open-source research into the prevention and early intervention applications of remote digital health technologies including smartphones and wearable devices. 

My scope of work centres on new digital measurement lenses of the human experience of symptoms, states, and external factors that modify experiences. I am particularly interested in building knowledge of biopsychosocial mechanisms of breakdown during transitional periods in life such as emerging adulthood, the perinatal window, and peri/menopause. My approach uses digital phenotyping and participant co-created research, involving multiple digital tools (e.g., smart/wearable devices and apps) to capture high-resolution manifestations of symptoms and experiences to inform individual level trajectories of chronic conditions, particularly mental health conditions with an aim to inform individualized interventions.

I completed a Bachelor of Science degree with an Honours in Psychology followed by a Master’s degree in Community Health and Epidemiology from Dalhousie University. I then completed a PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. During these graduate degrees, I additionally worked as a research associate with the Flourish Canadian Bipolar High-risk Offspring Study aimed at characterizing the early clinical and psycho-social trajectory of bipolar disorder among offspring at genetic risk. Following my PhD, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in bioinformatics in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford. 

Currently, I co-lead a number of digital health research projects that leverage high-resolution, multimodal digital data centred on quantifying real-world individual level symptom trajectories within and across mental health conditions, and transitional periods in women's health such as pregnancy and perimenopause. All of these studies include an element of participant co-design that aims to break down barriers in the endemic engagement challenge in the use of digital health technologies for long term, health monitoring and provision of care.

MINDSET (Multimodal Investigation of Novel Digital Markers for Sleep, Emotions, and personal Thresholds)

Study Aim: To determe real-world digital measures of sleep, activity, lifestyle and routines of bipolar disorder illness activity

Timeline: Expected launch, Q2 2026

Partners: Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, 4YouandMe, Bipolar UK, DPUK, Vector Institute for AI

Funder: Page Foundation

Our Transitions: Improving the path to menopause through personal digital health technologies

Study Aim: 1) to fill the considerable knowledge gap about the experience of perimenopause using objective and subjective data from a mobile app and wearable devices, and 2) to develop a rich, highly phenotyped open source dataset of objective and subjective physiological, behavioral and psychological experiences of women beginning in the late reproductive phase and continuing through to menopause.

Timeline: Expected launch, Q1 2026 

Partners: 4YouandMe, Women Living Better, Vector Institute for AI

Funder: Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation

https://ouraring.com/blog/nonprofit-uses-oura-in-study-aiming-to-empower-women-through-their-pregnancy-journey/?srsltid=AfmBOooqAPgNWi-15I_7EG874szc-MK_YOgIQx7AYrrUlbgQ8LgDqk3g

https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/23/pregnancy-apple-watches-oura-bump-study/

Become a registered Synapse user (https://help.adknowledgeportal.org/apd/Become-a-Certified-Synapse-User.3378610194.html) and access our open source datasets: 

Stress and Recovery in Frontline Healthcare Workers: https://www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn24994804/wiki/608728

Better Understanding the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy (BUMP): https://www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn25953345/wiki/616547

Stress in Crohn's disease: https://www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn49677213/wiki/627479

Rare As One: https://www.synapse.org/Synapse:syn70090241/wiki/635388