Top 10 Mental Health Innovations to Watch: Special SciAm/ WEF report

Cred­it: Adobe

The World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Glob­al Future Coun­cil on Men­tal Health, com­pris­ing some of the fore­most lead­ers in men­tal health, tech­nol­o­gy, infor­mat­ics, busi­ness, pub­lic pol­i­cy and advo­ca­cy is pub­lish­ing its selec­tions for the Top 10 Inno­va­tions in Men­tal Health. The ini­tia­tive is in part­ner­ship with Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, which is pub­lish­ing arti­cles by these lead­ers on its website.

Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, Coun­cil co-chair and pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine notes that “the coun­cil sift­ed through more than 60 nom­i­na­tions to pick nov­el solu­tions with the high­est near-term poten­tial to impact glob­al men­tal health”.

The Top 10 Inno­va­tions select­ed are:

1. Men­tal Health Cur­ric­u­la for Schools: Dig­i­tal plat­forms to edu­cate teens about men­tal health enhance resilience and self-efficacy.
2. Pre­dic­tive Ana­lyt­ics to Guide Men­tal Health Pol­i­cy: AI and big data-based fore­cast­ing mod­els help guide pub­lic pol­i­cy and invest­ments in men­tal health.
3. Nov­el Drug Ther­a­pies for Treat­ment-Resis­tant Depres­sion: Next gen­er­a­tion anti­de­pres­sants, such as intranasal eske­t­a­mine, bring new hope to patients.
4. Tele­health, Dig­i­tal Hot­lines, and Lay Coun­selling to Bridge Gaps in Care: A range of telemed­i­cine and com­mu­ni­ty based ser­vices bridge gaps to men­tal health access.
5. Social Media Ana­lyt­ics to Map Dis­ease Trends and Pre­vent Self-Harm: AI algo­rithms ana­lyze Twit­ter or Insta­gram posts to detect mood changes or suicidality.
6. Psy­che­del­ic Ther­a­py: Psy­che­delics, such as psilo­cy­bin and MDMA, com­bined with ther­a­py, show promise for treat­ing a range of dis­or­ders, includ­ing depres­sion and PTSD.
7. Phones and Oth­er Devices for Ear­ly Detec­tion and Mon­i­tor­ing: Smart phones can gen­er­ate over a thou­sand phys­i­o­log­i­cal sig­nals, cre­at­ing new ways to mon­i­tor behav­ioral states.
8. Dig­i­tal Train­ing to Increase Pool of Providers: New dig­i­tal plat­forms to train men­tal health work­ers over­come severe short­ages of clinicians.
9. New Work­force Mod­els to Keep Employ­ees Men­tal­ly Well: Emerg­ing pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship mod­els share best prac­tices, such as tool kits, that improve work­place wellbeing.
10. Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­places to Ensure Qual­i­ty Men­tal Health Solu­tions: Trust­ed mar­ket­places and stan­dard­ized cri­te­ria guide con­sumers to select the best apps for self-care.

The Report in Context:

• The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds via the eth­i­cal adop­tion of dig­i­tal men­tal health and neurotech
• 10 neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment and brain health
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright
• Three ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19