Health agency to mine social media for study on suicide trends, risk factors
SCROLL DOWN PLEASE FOR ARTICLE
Health agency to mine social media for study on suicide trends, risk factors
OTTAWA
— Federal health researchers are looking to mine social media to more
quickly identify suicide-related behaviours, instead of relying on
woefully outdated data.
What
the Public Health Agency of Canada wants is an artificial intelligence
program that combs social media platforms for keywords to give its
researchers a better view of trends and risk factors linked to
suicide-related behaviours.
The
proposed pilot project, outlined in federal bidding documents, would
also give a window into suicide risks based on sex, age, ethnicity, and
geographic location.
The
agency says it is not, however, looking to make the pilot project a
tool to predict suicides or identify specific people at risk of
attempting to die by suicide.
Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Canadian teens.
The
health agency produces regular reports on suicide trends using death
and hospital data, but the information can be up to five years old when
the agency gets it.
The
agency says to better prevent suicide, it needs more up-to-date
information of "suicide-related behaviours, which occur further
upstream," to figure out how to craft earlier interventions for those
who need the help.
The
bid documents say social media sweeps would start in June 2019. By the
end of next year, the agency expects to produce monthly social media
monitoring reports.
The
cost to create a program to sweep sites like Facebook and Twitter for
information is expected to be up to $150,000, excluding taxes, according
to the request for proposals.
The contract runs until March 2020.
The Canadian Press
No comments:
Post a Comment