How AI Is Revolutionizing The Ways We Can Detect Mental Illness

Predictive AI applications are relatively new to mental and behavioral health, but are already showing a lot of promise. In a recent publication on detecting suicide risk through analyzing text messages, UW Medicine researchers found that algorithms performed as well as trained evaluators. This is great news for predictive AI and the ability to save lives at risk for suicide through data analysis in real-time, when and where the individual is located. This is important because some healthcare providers may be concerned when they communicate by text message with a patient, they might miss something they are trained to pick up from voice inflection, facial expression, and other auditory or physical signals. Algorithms like this can help enhance the provider's ability to analyze the patient when communicating by text, an increasingly popular way for people to access mental health.