CAN AI HELP PREVENT SUICIDE?

How real-time monitoring may be the next big step in mental health care

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Suicide represents one of the most complex and heartbreaking challenges in public health.

One major difficulty in preventing suicide is knowing when someone is struggling.

Suicidal thoughts and behaviour can come and go quickly, and they’re not always present when someone sees a doctor or therapist, making them hard to detect with standard checklists.

Today, many of us use digital devices to track our physical health: counting steps, monitoring sleep, or checking screen time. Researchers are now starting to use similar tools to better understand mental health.

One method, called ecological momentary assessment (EMA), collects real-time information about a person’s mood, thoughts, behaviour and surroundings using a smartphone or wearable device. It does this by prompting the person to input information (active EMA) or collecting it automatically using sensors (passive EMA).