Your phone knows how many steps you’ve taken today, how long you’ve been outside, how much social interaction you’ve had... It can be scary, but what if it could be the path to a better way of managing mental health?

Rates of anxiety and depression continue to rise, but even if we could double the workforce of mental health professionals, we still wouldn’t keep up. Dr Frank Iorfino says it’s time to use big data to our own advantage. He calls it ‘ambient mental health care’ - it’s a way of leveraging all that data collection already happening in the background so we can better understand ourselves and our mental health.

Frank explains why the current approach to mental health care needs to change, and outlines how ambient mental health care is already being used today.

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The Solutionists is a podcast from the University of Sydney, produced by Deadset Studios. Keep up to date with The Solutionists by following @sydney_uni on Facebook and Instagram, and @sydney.edu.au on Bluesky.

This episode was produced by Liam Riordan with sound design by Jeremy Wilmot. Supervising producer is Sarah Dabro. Executive editors are Kellie Riordan, Sladjana Rstic, and Mark Scott. Strategist is Ann Chesterman.

This podcast was recorded on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. For thousands of years, across innumerable generations, knowledge has been taught, shared and exchanged here. We pay respect to elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.