Academic Journal Special Issue – Frontiers in Digital Health, Digital Mental Health Section.
SUMMARY & SUBMISSION
There has been a surge in the supply and demand of digital mental health support services in recent times. There have also been high profile cyberattacks specifically targeting mental health and behavioural services, along with a shift toward targeting vulnerable people directly. Cyberattacks involving personal health data, especially sensitive mental health data, could have devasting consequences to vulnerable people, those close to them, and many additional stakeholders and society. While digital transformations of mental health support and services can offer new tools for making decisions, sharing information, and delivering services remotely there is a clear lack of prioritisation dedicated to security, which could harm the delivery of care, especially life-saving services.
One of the current issues that this field faces is that while many technical solutions exist there is a lack of adoption of such technical capabilities. Furthermore, there is a significant lack of attention and rigorous examination of much broader factors related to cybersecurity in digital mental health spaces, such as the human perspective, the need for collection and interpretation of threat intelligence data, bringing awareness to current and future policies, and the creation of appropriate processes to deal with threats effectively. The aim of this Research Topic on cybersecurity in digital mental health is to promote knowledge exchange to contribute toward developing a global culture around cybersecurity in digital mental health. This call for participation welcomes all article types related to the topics listed below, and we welcome enquiries about other areas:
Human Factors, Human Impact, Human Involvement, and Human Vulnerability. For example:
How to support victims of cyberattacks. What are the types of harms that can occur and what impact does this have on victims and those close to them?
What best practices are available for victim support responses? Incident response planning for potentially life-threatening service disruptions/issues?
What psychological factors motivate hacking and social engineering tactics? o How can we address issues such as intimate partner surveillance?
How can we support online security for practitioners?
How can we measure the impact on employees who made a human error-triggered data breach and offer better support?
How can Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) inform research and real-world practices? What qualitative research can be done?
Collecting and sharing threat intelligence data and other important data sources. For example:
Understanding what kind of data is currently available and who is collecting such data (law firms, digital mental health providers, insurers, academics etc).
How can metrics help to define, collect and report on security and safety?
How can we evaluate the clinical impact and outcomes of service users after a cyberattack?
How can mental health data be protected, but shared safely in research, industry, and mental healthcare settings?
Privacy, Data Protection, Policy, Laws, Rights and Freedoms, Ethics. For example:
Working with children and data protection and privacy laws
How does policy compare across countries?
To what extent are issues of security and privacy impeding the effective roll-out and adoption of remote mental healthcare?
Client trackers, adtech, analytics, and advertising on provider platforms and membership body websites
Balancing privacy and encryption without enhancing exploitation/predators
Other challenges or opportunities. For example:
Cybersecurity budgeting, such as pathways to reduced costs and revenue
Auditing data, such as third-party suppliers
Mental health of professionals working in cybersecurity, issues of inclusion, promoting diversity, ethical hacking, and skill building
We are looking for real-world case studies