This project from Healthy Minds Innovations, a non-profit affiliated with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, aims to determine the value of personalized approaches of wellbeing interventions to globally increase wellbeing and human flourishing. Specifically, it addresses a critical need to develop interventions that are tailored to the phenotypic characteristics of the individual (i.e., observable traits in an individual based on the expression of their genes).

The central hypothesis that this project will test is that personalized training is indeed more engaging and more effective than standard one-size-fits-all training. This is accomplished through developing and researching personalized wellbeing training based upon deep baseline phenotyping and ongoing measures of the fundamental constituents of wellbeing. 

While this kind of personalization has recently begun to be explored, this project is expected to advance understanding significantly. It includes studies large enough to build and test reliable predictive algorithms utilizing a multifaceted approach, grounding in neuroscience, incorporating user interface design, and scalability.

This work builds upon Project Director Richard J. Davidson’s previous comprehensive work on the non-personalized training Healthy Minds Program and app, which focuses on promoting awareness, connection, insight, and purpose.

The project will address two primary questions of the study: (1) Does personalized wellbeing training result in more significant benefit in engagement and well-being outcomes than a standardized fixed program? (2) Do micro-supports — simple text messages prompting a short (<1 minute) practice to be done in the moment — boost positive gains of the program?

The first phase consists of completing a personalized version of the training program and performing user-experience studies. 

The second phase includes refinements based on phase 1 learning, followed by a large optimization study and a large-scale efficacy randomized controlled trial, determining the added value of the personalization to a non-personalized program.

The team anticipates having a scalable strategy for large-scale dissemination of wellbeing training at the end of the project period.