Ksana Health has received a $17.9 million contract from ARPA-H’s EVIDENT initiative to lead a multi-institutional project building a Large Health Behavior Model (LHBM), using smartphone and wearable data to predict, prevent, and manage mental health and substance use disorders.
Ksana Health Inc. has received a contract award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under its EVIDENT initiative to lead a multi-institutional project titled "Building a Behavioral Health Foundation Model," according to official disclosures.
The total agreement is valued at up to $17.9 million, with $5.1 million in base funding currently obligated and additional options for scaled phases. The project will develop a Large Health Behavior Model (LHBM), an AI system trained on continuous behavioral data from smartphones and wearables including physical activity, sleep, mobility, social connection, and language use linked to electronic health records.
Ksana Health leads the project in partnership with Providence Health & Services, MedStar Health, and the University of Washington.
This development matters because behavioral factors contribute to 90% of the nation’s $4.9 trillion in annual health expenditures, yet screening and early intervention remain limited. Current tools rely heavily on subjective self-report, and measurement-based care is rarely implemented. The LHBM aims to enable proactive, personalized behavioral healthcare by using AI to predict outcomes and guide treatment selection, moving beyond trial-and-error approaches. A Lived Experience and Ethics Panel (LEEP) will integrate patient perspectives and ethical oversight from the start. Industries impacted include digital health, AI-driven diagnostics, and mental healthcare delivery.
Stakeholders include health systems, insurers, patients, and mobile device users.
For investors, the project represents a high-risk, high-reward government-funded moonshot for behavioral health AI. Success will depend on data privacy, model generalizability across diverse populations, and integration into clinical workflows. The multi-institutional structure and ethics-first approach may reduce regulatory barriers but does not guarantee commercial viability.
Ksana Health is a digital health technology company focused on behavioral measurement and mental health.
ARPA-H is a US government agency funding high-impact biomedical and health research.
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