Data Science and Mental Health

Mental illness, according to studies, affects around 10 million people around the world every year. One in every five adults suffers from mental illness. Half of all chronic mental illness begins at the age of 14. The general gap between the treatment and the first sign of symptom is huge. Opting a data science course in Delhi with a reputed institute will surely help one's understanding of the concepts.

The reasons can be the high cost or the social stigma attached to it. The future of children suffering from mental illness is always under questions for the same reason. In India, lack of awareness and the social stigma attached to mental health results of around 47% of students feeling a lack of self-confidence and poor academic performance.

When we talk about the role of Data Science in mental health it is relatively limited than the other healthcare sectors. Data scientists are work on data to find a pattern that would help them to determine an early symptom of mental illness.

Currently, data science is highly used to interpret how much damage mental illness has created over a few years to the whole human population. If scientists are able to know to the root cause it becomes far easier to treat the patient.

Data Science is making a significant impact on areas like suicide awareness. There are several crisis centres that have been set up where people can call in the need hour and talk to a counsellor without revealing their identity. The new initiative by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation called ‘NEVER GIVE UP’ is the outcome of this only. Never give up a campaign is an online campaign to spread awareness about the growing suicide rates on the Delhi Metro.

DMRC has also set special mirror gates to stop people from coming close to the metro trains. CCTV cameras and a sharp study of passenger behaviour is also a helping factor to minimise the rates of suicides. Data scientists analyse the data received and carefully examine it to help a better experience. This campaign is also something to be proud of for all the Data Science Institutes in Delhi.

Data Science is the current backbone for many pieces of research on mental health. There are several failed attempts in avoiding the tragedies and injustice people have to face because of mental health. However, now mental health awareness and care are growing.

The OPAL Centre, Columbia University states that “A vast gap separates the clinical research environments where evidence-based treatments for mental disorders are developed and tested from the real-world clinical practice environments where the large scale implementation of these interventions are delivered.”

Out of 2 million schizophrenia, 40% of cases go untreated. Treatment of people suffering from schizophrenia is difficult which makes the treatment experience bad. Firstly, not all the cases are registered or given attention to, secondly, if the cases registered are given the best possible treatment than we can fight the biggest mental illness.

Doctors highly rely on people’s power to recollect the things which just creates problems because people with mental illness are vulnerable to memories. Thankfully, data scientists have created Smartphone apps that can help in collecting data about the real-time symptom of the person. This has made a long-lasting impact in the area of mental health care.

There are also several more apps providing meditation therapies and mindfulness, developed to calm the storms humans go through mentally. Smartwatches are also designed in a way that they can keep a track of the person’s heartbeat, sleeping pattern and many other things. All this data is highly useful for psychiatrists in treating and keeping a record.

Data Science has many more useful roles than its generalised one and it does wonders for and with humans. Data Science courses in Delhi and other parts of the country adjust their modules accordingly so that the future data scientists know that the road they chose to walk on has no end but only opportunities.  

There has been considerably less investment in the mental health sector than the others making it clear how neglected it is. With the use of trending technology like Data Science maybe we’ll be able to create more awareness and a better and faster way to treat people suffering from mental illness. Let’s hope to see more and more accurate data science in or lives.

Let’s keep our hope on Vinod Khosla’s quote, “In the next ten years, Data Science and software will do more for medicine than all of the biological sciences together.”