Personalization and Precision: A New Paradigm
“…precision medicine for mental disorders will not come from a single genomic glitch. Rather, like many other areas of medicine, many genes each contribute only a small amount of vulnerability as part of an overall risk profile that includes life experiences, neurodevelopment, and social and cultural factors. RDoC assumes that we will need many kinds of data to reach precision, more like triangulating to find your position on a map. These data will draw from many sources, including symptoms, genotype, physiology, cognitive assessment, family dynamics, environmental exposures, and cultural background.”
Precision Mental Health: Definitions and Requirements
Data type | Description |
---|---|
Personal data | Individual-level information that may inform intervention choice/selection (e.g., demographics; diagnoses; cultural variables; motivation to change) |
Aims and risks data | The focus and expected outcomes of treatment as well as potential risks |
Services preference data | Client choices/selections at key decision points regarding services |
Intervention data | Aspects of the services delivered over the course of treatment (e.g., intervention integrity; dose/intensity; duration; timing) |
Progress data | Movement toward the intended and agreed aims of any intervention, and against identified benchmarks |
Mechanisms data | The hypothesized link between intervention and outcomes. May be mediators of treatment (e.g., skills development or use, therapeutic alliance, etc.) |
Contextual data | Factors external to the individual/intervention that moderate or mediate outcomes (e.g., quality and amount of service available; family functioning data) |