A new tool could improve mental health care for communities affected by Covid-19

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, mental health needs have increased. In the first six months of 2019, only 11% of adults experienced symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder, but more recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that about a third of adults experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression during the pandemic. . .

“We are facing a national mental health crisis,” said Nathaniel Counts, senior vice president of behavioral health innovation for Mental Health America. “With Covid, the rates of mental health problems are skyrocketing.” The pandemic also impacted existing behavioral health resources.

Tanzid Hasnain and a group of fellow graduate students in industrial and systems engineering at North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T University, plus a university researcher, have designed a new tool to identify and meet mental health needs exacerbated by the pandemic. .

As part of the Call for Code Spot Challenge: Mental Health in a Time of Crisis, run by IBM and several partner organizations, Hasnain and his team developed a program to improve mental health. The group won the competition by creating a product that can predict the prevalence and severity of anxiety and depression symptoms in a Covid-19-affected community and tell community leaders what to do about it. They designed their prototype to serve Hispanic populations, as they have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19 cases and deaths due to factors such as overrepresentation in the essential workforce and systemic barriers to health care. Hispanic people are also reporting increased symptoms of anxiety and depression during the pandemic, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

The product, a mental health decision-making program, uses the weekly number of local Covid-19 infections, the number of deaths from Covid-19, the health insurance coverage rates and the number of unemployment claims for estimate how many people may start experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms in the next week.

“It collects all the historical data and predicts the number of people facing mental health problems in the next [time] period, “Hasnain said. The team thought infection, death, health insurance coverage, and unemployment rates would be major stressors that trigger mental health symptoms.

The second part of the tool tells local officials what actions to take based on the resources available to them and the severity of mental health problems in the community. An algorithm processes information about community resources and the severity of mental health needs and provides a mental health response recommendation tailored to the individual community.

These actions vary in cost and scope. Current recommendations include creating a social media campaign for mental health awareness, delivering a celebrity public service announcement, requesting mental health professionals to volunteer to serve people who cannot afford counseling, creating art or music therapy programs and developing online support groups for people experiencing mental health problems.

“These are great starting tips,” said Counts, who was not involved in the project. But the pandemic has changed the services that might be available to people and which ones might be effective.

Counts pointed out that social interactions, for example, can mitigate mental health symptoms. Setting up online support groups could be especially helpful for people now, when many have limited social activity. “One of the most important things is that we can now use the best available evidence to prove what we think will be effective, but we are facing a stressor that most people haven’t faced in their lives,” he said.

The next step is to further refine the tool and test it in communities. Hasnain and his group are looking to partner with policy makers to put their tool to good use. “Our goal is to take this product and apply it to as diverse populations and geographic regions as possible,” Hasnain said. “We have developed this software so that policy makers can better prepare for the future.”