Since the start of the pandemic, mental health needs have risen sharply.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, mental health needs have been on the rise. In the first six months of 2019, only 11% of adults had symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder, but more recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows that about a third of adults have been experiencing anxiety or depression symptoms throughout the pandemic.
“We're 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 has also taken a toll on existing behavioral health resources.
Tanzid Hasnain and a group of fellow doctoral students in industrial and systems engineering at North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T University, plus one undergraduate researcher, have designed a new tool aimed at identifying and meeting the 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 by developed a program to improve mental healthcare. The group won the competition by creating a product that could forecast the prevalence and severity of anxiety and depression symptoms in a community affected by Covid-19 — 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 like overrepresentation in the essential workforce and systemic barriers to healthcare. Hispanic people are also reporting increased anxiety and depression symptoms 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, number of Covid-19 deaths, health insurance coverage rates and number of unemployment insurance claims to estimate how many people may start to experience anxiety and depression symptoms in the next week.
"It collects all the historical data and predicts the number of people facing mental health issues in the next [time] period," said Hasnain. The team reasoned that infection, death, health insurance coverage and unemployment rates would be important stressors triggering mental health symptoms.
The second part of the tool tells local officials what actions to take based on the resources at their disposal and the severity of mental health issues in the community. An algorithm processes information on the community’s resources and severity of mental health needs, and provides a mental health response recommendation tailored to the individual community.
These actions range in cost and reach. The current recommendations include creating a mental health awareness social media campaign, providing a celebrity public service announcement, asking mental health practitioners to volunteer to serve people who can't afford counseling, creating art or music therapy programs and developing online support groups for people experiencing mental health issues.
"These are great starting recommendations," said Counts, who was not involved with the project. But the pandemic has changed what services might be available to people, and what could be effective.
Counts pointed out that social interactions, for example, can mitigate mental health symptoms. Creating online support groups could be especially helpful to people now, when many have limited social activity. "One of the biggest things is right now we can use the best available evidence to try what we think might be effective, but we're facing a stressor that most people haven't faced in their lifetimes," he said.
The next step is further refining the tool and testing it in communities. Hasnain and his group are looking to partner with policymakers to put their tool to practical use. "Our goal is to take this product and apply it to as diverse populations and geographical regions as possible," Hasnain said. "We've developed this software so policymakers can better prepare for the future."
