Spatio-temporal determinants of mental health and well-being: advances in geographically-explicit ecological momentary assessment (GEMA)

Overview of geographically explicit momentary assessment research, applied to the study of mental health and well-being, which allows for cross-validation, extension, and enrichment of research on place and health. Building on the historical foundations of both ecological momentary assessment and geographic momentary assessment research, this review explores their emerging synergy into a more generalized and powerful research framework. Geographically explicit momentary assessment methods are rapidly advancing across a number of complimentary literatures that intersect but have not yet converged. Key contributions from these areas reveal tremendous potential for transdisciplinary and translational science. Mobile communication devices are revolutionizing research on mental health and well-being by physically linking momentary experience sampling to objective measures of socio-ecological context in time and place. Methodological standards are not well-established and will be required for transdisciplinary collaboration and scientific inference moving forward.