Jeff Brozena

I am a PhD candidate at Penn State University in the Wellbeing and Health Innovation Lab advised by Dr Saeed Abdullah. I’m interested in technical HCI for mental health.

My research centers on understanding how open banking technologies can help with the unique financial challenges faced by those living with bipolar disorder. I’m working towards (1) creating novel assessments of financial data that model distinct changes to mood and spending behaviors, and (2) designing collaborative, timely interventions that support long-term financial wellbeing across all phases of this illness.

My work is currently supported by the National Science Foundation via the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

I am a long-time advocate for mental health issues and am open about my lived experience with bipolar disorder. I founded Penn State’s Active Minds chapter back in 2010. If this sort of thing interests you, you may want to check out my essay Nobody Falls Halfway.

Previously I led the digital transformation of what was one of the country’s largest and highest-quality closely-held Medicaid groups, Smiles 4 Keeps Pediatric Dentistry. With minimal supervision and years of close mentorship by its owner, I stewarded this unique group from paper operations to centralized (and salable) operations by integrating OpenDental in the midst of a cross-generational transfer of family leadership.

I’ve played tabla since 2009 or so. Also, I have some photography available for your viewing pleasure.

news

Aug 14, 2024	Following a vote by network membership, I was accepted as a trainee member of the CrestBD research network.
Dec 7, 2023	Comprehensive exam is done. Onto candidacy.
Jul 24, 2023	I posted my N-of-1 analysis on four years of my own Oura Ring sleep data and mood logs. Oura’s sleep score was shown to Granger-cause the presence of depressed and anxious moods in a lag-2 vector autoregression.
Apr 1, 2023	I was awarded the National Science Foundation GRFP!

selected publications

Supportive Fintech for Individuals with Bipolar Disorder: Financial Data Sharing Preferences to Support Longitudinal Care Management

Brozena, Jeff, Blair, Johnna, Richardson, Thomas, Matthews, Mark, Mukherjee, Dahlia, Saunders, Erika F H, and Abdullah, Saeed

2023

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Financial stability is a key challenge for individuals living with bipolar disorder (BD). Symptomatic periods in BD are associated with poor financial decision-making, contributing to a negative cycle of worsening symptoms and an increased risk of bankruptcy. There has been an increased focus on designing supportive financial technologies (fintech) to address varying and intermittent needs across different stages of BD. However, little is known about this population’s expectations and privacy preferences related to financial data sharing for longitudinal care management. To address this knowledge gap, we have deployed a factorial vignette survey using the Contextual Integrity framework. Our data from individuals with BD (N=480) shows that they are open to share financial data for long term care management. We have also identified significant differences in sharing preferences across age, gender, and diagnostic subtype. We discuss the implications of these findings in designing equitable fintech to support this marginalized community.
Financial technologies (FinTech) for mental health: The potential of objective financial data to better understand the relationships between financial behavior and mental health

Blair, Johnna, Brozena, Jeff, Matthews, Mark, Richardson, Thomas, and Abdullah, Saeed

Frontiers in Psychiatry 2022

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Financial stability is a key challenge for individuals with mental illnesses. Symptomatic periods often manifest in poor financial decision-making including compulsive spending and risky behaviors. This article explores research opportunities and challenges in developing financial technologies (FinTech) to support individuals with mental health. Specifically, we focus on how objective financial data might lead to novel mental health assessment and intervention methods. We have used data from one individual with bipolar disorder (BD) (i.e., an N = 1 case study) to illustrate feasibility of collecting and analyzing objective financial data alongside mental health factors. While we have not found statistically significant trends nor our findings are generalizable beyond this case, our approach provides an insight into the potential of using objective financial data to identify early warning signs and thereby, enable preemptive care for individuals with serious mental illnesses. We have also identified challenges of accessing objective financial data. The paper outlines what data is currently available, what can be done with it, and what factors to consider when working with financial data. We have also explored future directions for developing interventions to support financial well-being and stability. Furthermore, we have described the technical, ethical, and equity challenges for financial data-driven assessments and intervention methods, as well as provided a broad research agenda to address these challenges.