We’re experiencing a mental health crisis. Approximately15.5% of the global population is affected by mental illnesses, and those numbers are rising. Although there are many who require treatment, more than 50% of mental illnesses remain untreated. In the United States,one in five adults suffers from some form of mental illness. Every40 seconds one person dies from suicide and for every adult who dies from suicide, there are more than 20 others who have attempted to end their life. The ramifications of this go beyond our families and cultures as mental health also has a tremendous economic impact for the cost of treatment as well as the loss of productivity.
The critical shortfall of psychiatrists and other mental health specialists to provide treatment exacerbates this crisis. In fact, nearly 40% of Americans live where there is ashortage of mental health professionals; 60% of U.S. counties don’t have a psychiatrist. Those that do have access to mental health professionals often forgo treatment because they can’t afford it. Those with depression visit primary care physicians an average of five times a year versus three times for those who don’t have it. Others seek help in emergency rooms which are more expensive. More than $201 billion is spent on mental health annually making mental health the most expensive part of our healthcare system after knocking out heart conditions for the honor.
Examples of current uses of AI in mental health
Researchers are testing different ways that artificial intelligence can help screen, diagnose and treat mental illness.
Researchers from the World Well-Being Project (WWBP)analyzed social media with an AI algorithm to pick out linguistic cues that might predict depression. It turns out that those suffering from depression express themselves on social media in ways that those dealing with other chronic conditions do not such as mentions of loneliness and using words such as "feelings," "I" and "me." The team'sfindings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but after analyzing half a million Facebook posts from people who consented to provide their Facebook status updates and medical records, they were able to identify depression-associated language markers. What the researchers found was that linguistic markers could predict depression up to three months before the person receives a formal diagnosis. Other researchersuse technology to explore the way facial expressions, enunciation of words and tone and language could indicate suicide risk.
In addition to researchers, there areseveral companies using artificial intelligence to help tackle the mental health crisis.Quartet's platform flags possible mental conditions and can refer patients to a provider or a computerized cognitive behavioral therapy program.Ginger’s contribution is a chat application used by employers that provides direct counseling services to employees. Its algorithms analyze the words someone uses and then relies on its training from more than 2 billion behavioral data samples, 45 million chat messages and 2 million clinical assessments to provide a recommendation. TheCompanionMX system has an app that allows patients being treated with depression, bipolar disorders, and other conditions to create an audio log where they can talk about how they are feeling.
