School of Informatics (College of Science and Engineering)!School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences (College of Humanities and Social Sciences)

How Private Is Mental Health?

!Maria Wolters!University of Edinburgh!!maria.wolters@ed.ac.uk!@mariawolters!

About Mental Health

http://www.optipess.com/2012/09/28/dressing-up/

A third of workers would not tell their managers !if they experienced mental health problems.!

!Dewa, C. S. (2014). Worker Attitudes towards Mental Health Problems and Disclosure. The International Journal of Occupational and

Environmental Medicine, 5(4), 17586.

Have Applications, Want to Work on Solutions

When the Public is Private

Hacks that Work, or!Security versus Convenience

Hacks That Work?

Help4Mood: Supporting People with Depression

3 clinical sites, 2 companies, 5 universities!!daily monitoring ! of activity using actigraph,! of mood, thought patterns &

psychomotor using talking head GUI!

weekly one-page reports to clinicians

Funder: European Union FP7, STREP

The Help4Mood Development Cycle1. Actigraphy

2. Mood Tracker +!Actigraphy

3. Mood Tracker,!Thought Patterns,!Speech + Actigraphy

4. Mood Tracker,!Thought Patterns,!Behavioural Activation,!Relaxation,!Speech + Actigraphy

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Case Studies!!!!

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Pilot RCT!!

!People with !

history of depression!

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People with !current depression!

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Who Uses The Data? Who Generates?

What is the value in the data?! This report is just for you, isnt it?! Dont make me monitor the monitors.! Im OK with wearing this watch for research, but ! Why does it say it cant read the actigraph data?! I want to use the system when I need it.: A monitoring

strategy became a coping strategy

Locking Down is Hard to Do Separate mobile phone / laptop vs. getting data such as

call history, speech (scrambled), movement from users own mobile!

Data encryption and severely restricting internet use! NHS requirements (within vs outwith health services) ! Providing access to clinicians:!

Infrastructure for secure transmission! One more password versus pushing to email

When the Public is Private

Personal Text Data for Personal Use

How not to do it: The Samaritans Radar. !Worried about a friend who is on Twitter? !Sign up and we will alert you when your friend sounds like they need a hug or a cup of tea. !Dont want your friends to be alerted? Set your timeline to private.

Pros Your public Twitter data is free

for anyone to analyse! Followers are friends! If counsellors think youre

suicidal, they would tell someone, too!

There are terms that can tell you whether somebody is suicidal!

False positives are better than false negatives

and Cons Your public Twitter data is free

for anyone to analyse! Followers are friends! If counsellors think youre

suicidal, they would tell someone, too!

There are terms that can tell you whether somebody is suicidal!

False positives are better than false negatives

Twitter has many uses, personal and professional!

People on Twitter with mental health problems have their own strategies!

Mental health is private; problems carry stigma!

Too many false positives lead to alert fatigue !

Potential for targeted harassment

Overall, Your public Twitter data is free

for anyone to analyse! Followers are friends! If counsellors think youre

suicidal, they would tell someone, too!

There are terms that can tell you whether somebody is suicidal!

False positives are better than false negatives

Twitter has many uses, personal and professional!

People on Twitter with mental health problems have their own strategies!

Mental health is private; problems carry stigma!

Too many false positives lead to alert fatigue !

Potential for targeted harassment

BAD IDEA

A Different Approach

Processing personal text (blogs, tweets, Facebook)!and visualising the results!to allow insight into how mental health affects!thinking, writing, and posting patterns!!

People can share insights with others if they wish

Contact Details

Privacy and security in eHealth (applications)! maria.wolters@ed.ac.uk; @mariawolters