Join Our PolarUs App Advisory Groups: Spanish, Chinese & French Speakers Wanted!

Join the PolarUs app team! 📱

We are forming new PolarUs app advisory groups of Spanish, Chinese, and French-speaking people living with bipolar disorder in the U.S. and Canada. These groups will help guide the cultural adaptation of the PolarUs app and provide input on the implementation of an upcoming clinical study.

Complete this brief form to us know if you are interested:

The PolarUs app

PolarUs is an English-language app that provides users with information on effective BD treatments, education, and self-management skills. The PolarUs app was developed by Dr. Erin Michalak’s CREST.BD team in close collaboration with people with BD, including members of the PolarUs User Group (PUG; established in 2022) to optimize quality of life (QoL). The PolarUs app is currently available for iPhone users. An enhanced Android version is in development and expected to launch later in 2025. Learn more about the PolarUs app here.

Background

My name is Leena Chau, and I am very excited to have recently joined the CREST.BD team in Vancouver, Canada, a beautiful place I am lucky to call home. I was recently awarded a UBC Department of Psychiatry Institute of Mental Health Marshall Fellowship to work on cultural and linguistic adaptation of the PolarUs app for people with bipolar disorder (BD).

Digital mental health interventions, particularly smartphone apps, are one promising way to improve wellness outcomes and QoL in people with BD. However, many of the available apps are low quality, do not focus on BD or QoL specifically, are not developed with people with BD, and are not culturally adapted to support widespread use.

Me with Dr. Erin Michalak (left), Principal Investigator of the PolarUs Study

To address this gap, my postdoctoral fellowship work will culturally adapt the PolarUs app to French, Mandarin, and Spanish, the three most common languages in U.S. and Canada aside from English, and to work with Dr. Michalak and CREST.BD to conduct a clinical trial on the adapted PolarUs app with the different language groups in Canada and the United States. This will involve establishing three language-specific project advisory groups, which will help us achieve our goal of ensuring that the adapted PolarUs app content and resources are culturally appropriate, supporting greater equity, diversion, and inclusion in digital mental health care, something I am passionate about.

I look forward to returning to the University of British Columbia to support this important research, after an enriching and rewarding eight years at the neighbouring Simon Fraser University, where I will complete my PhD in August 2025 under the supervision of Dr. John O’Neil.