JMIR Research Protocols

Mental health disorders are a leading cause of disability among adolescents and young people in Kenya, yet access to appropriate and timely support remains severely limited due to shortages of trained professionals, stigma, financial barriers, and geographical inequities. Digital mental health interventions, particularly those leveraging AI, present a promising opportunity to expand access to culturally relevant, low-stigma mental wellness support in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. However, evidence on the feasibility, usability, and acceptability of AI-powered mental health tools for young people in sub-Saharan Africa remains limited.

The early life course, that is, from preconception up until the first 1000 days of life, is pivotal for optimizing parental and child health. In deprived settings, unfavorable lifestyle behaviors and poor mental health are more prevalent, while access to effective, context-sensitive support is limited. Digital interventions combined with community-based approaches may help address these disparities.

Nearly 83 million Americans experience mental illness, but fewer than 50% accessed past-year mental health services. Disseminable, potent mental health interventions are critically needed. Standalone digital interventions offer promise for improving clinical outcomes, but the efficacy of these interventions to date is modest, likely due in part to insufficient personalization to patient heterogeneity, varying context, and the stochastic nature of mental health symptoms.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of lower respiratory tract disease in infants, with the highest burden in the first 6 months of life. Maternal immunization with the bivalent (RSV-A and RSV-B) prefusion F (RSVPreF) protein subunit vaccine (ABRYSVO) is a recently recommended strategy for preventing RSV-related outcomes in infants. First licensed for use in pregnancy in 2023, the RSVPreF vaccine demonstrated efficacy in a single pivotal randomized trial (Maternal Immunization Study for Safety and Efficacy; MATISSE); postlicensure real-world evidence on vaccine effectiveness across settings, seasons, and subgroups and on antibody durability and transplacental transfer remains limited and has not been synthesized in a continuously updated framework, motivating this review.

Prediabetes represents a critical intervention window to reduce progression to type 2 diabetes. The current standard of care for treatment of prediabetes is weight loss and lifestyle modification, which are both highly effective, although limited by real-world adherence. It is well recognized that continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) improves glycemic and behavioral outcomes in people with diabetes, although outcomes among people with prediabetes are not well described.

Young adult survivors of pediatric brain tumors and young adult patients with isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutant gliomas are at risk for cognitive impairment, reduced physical fitness and function, as well as poor health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and psychosocial health. Exercise improves these outcomes; however, both populations remain understudied with respect to exercise interventions. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a promising intervention, as it is time-efficient, safe, tolerable, enhances cognition in healthy young adults, and improves physical fitness and quality of life in adult patients and survivors with cancer. However, the feasibility of HIIT is not yet understood in survivors of pediatric brain tumors and patients with IDH-mutant glioma.

Clinical reasoning skills are key competencies required by health care professionals. Generative AI (GenAI)–enabled teaching may be able to offer personalized learning; however, its effectiveness compared with traditional teaching methods for developing clinical reasoning capabilities remains underexplored.

Underreporting is a defining problem in the documentation of workplace violence across public services. This is reinforced by inconsistent, often poor incident descriptions and the absence of a clear, shared nomenclature. Without an ontology-backed structure, similar events are recorded differently across settings or remain uncodable and effectively invisible. Moreover, workplace violence (WPV) is typically registered and studied within sector- and even organization-specific categories and local reporting logics rather than through a shared semantic framework, limiting comparability and cumulative understanding across sectors. To address this, we propose creating and publicizing a workplace violence ontology (WPV-ONTO) to unify the representation of WPV events across public services.

Burnout is increasingly recognized as a critical concern in medical education due to its associations with reduced professional performance, decreased empathy, and increased risk of medical errors. With growing evidence that medical students commonly experience burnout and its associated health consequences (eg, depression and suicide), it is essential to explore factors that may protect against its harmful effects on student well-being. Although spirituality is often considered a potential factor supporting mental health and resilience, its role in buffering burnout among medical students has not been comprehensively reviewed.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by restricted and repetitive behaviors and disturbances in social communication and interaction. Currently, there is no fundamental treatment for ASD, with only a few medications available for use on a limited basis to manage concomitant neuropsychiatric symptoms. The primary therapeutic goal of such treatments is to alleviate symptoms while maximizing the functional independence and quality of life of affected individuals. Many complementary and alternative medicine therapies have been reported to have effects on ASD symptoms; however, evidence is insufficient to confirm their clinical effectiveness. Acupuncture has traditionally been used as a complementary intervention to manage various neurological and neuropsychiatric diseases, including ASD, in East Asia. However, how acupuncture stimulation modulates neural activity at the macroscale level in individuals with ASD remains largely unknown.

HIV-related research has increasingly focused on addressing long-term comorbidities affecting health-related quality of life for people with HIV. Sleep-related conditions, such as insomnia, are highly prevalent among people with HIV and are associated with a variety of health challenges, including immune dysregulation, increased mental health burden, and reduced antiretroviral therapy adherence. Although there are several evidence-based pharmacological (eg, hypnotics) and nonpharmacological interventions (eg, cognitive behavioral therapy) to treat insomnia, few have been specifically tested among people with HIV.

People experiencing homelessness face high morbidity and unmet health care needs. To address these gaps, health care providers across the United States are increasingly adopting “field medicine” models that deliver mobile health services in shelters, homeless encampments, mobile clinics, and other community settings. Despite their expanding use, systematic evaluations of field medicine programs remain limited.