11:20 AM - 11:30 AM
46800 - Global Mental Health Equity: Tackling Biases in Digital Mental Health Assessment Tools
In a world where technology interconnects us, we need AI assessment tools that are as inclusive as they are innovative. However, even the most recommended tools often reflect societal biases, inadvertently marginalizing those who don’t check the right boxes. Achieving global mental health equity means overcoming substantial challenges, especially in terms of accessibility and assessment accuracy. These challenges are further compounded by biases inherent in popular AI assessment tools. AI models can demonstrate accuracy differences as large as 25% among different ethnic groups. And popular tools like the GAD-7 lose about 15% of their sensitivity when used on non-Western populations, highlighting a critical gap in effectiveness.
Thesis: Equitable AI assessment tools possess the transformative potential to redefine mental health care across the globe. However, for these tools to truly make an impact, they must be designed and implemented with a keen focus on improving access, promoting engagement, and enhancing effectiveness for all populations. This approach transcends mere technological advancements and reaches into the realm of ethics, ensuring that these innovations close the gaps in mental health care access and outcomes rather than widening them. Emphasizing equitable access and meaningful user engagement will underpin their ability to break down barriers and overcome biases, thus providing a just and effective solution for mental health care globally.
Key Points to be Discussed:
•Understanding AI Bias in Mental Health Assessments: Explore the sources and nature of biases in AI models, such as algorithmic bias originating from non-representative training datasets. Discuss real-world implications where biases have led to skewed mental health assessments and outcomes.
•The Role of Data Inclusivity with the Equity Equation: Introduce the equity equation for digital mental health. This approach ensures that AI outcomes are accessible, effective, and fair, defined by the equation: Equity = (Access × Engagement × Effectiveness) / (Barriers + Bias).
•Rethinking Standardized Mental Health Measures: Delve into the advantages and challenges that come with utilizing the standardized measures recommended by the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement.
•Examples of Known Biases in Progress and Outcome Monitoring Instruments: Review examples of known biases within the National Institute of Mental Health standardized measures chosen for the common data elements initiative. This spotlights where improvements can be made to enhance equity.
•Potential Solutions and Innovations: Delve into solutions that have demonstrated the ability to address the challenges of mental health equity and explore why many health practitioners continue to favor traditional AI assessment tools that employ diagnostic measures developed by the World Health Organization, American Psychiatric Association, and Pfizer.
The presentation seeks to spark a collaborative effort to transform common measures into a truly equitable process through AI assessment tools that emphasize equity = (access × engagement × effectiveness) / (barriers + bias). It is designed to engage congress delegates in a conversation about real-world applications and strategies that can be implemented globally. By addressing biases in AI assessment tools, we can pave the way for innovative, inclusive solutions that ensure equitable access to mental health support worldwide.
11:30 AM - 11:40 AM
41602 - Enhancing Mental Health Support Between Sessions: The Role of AI & Digital Tools
Ms Kiera Macdonald, Psychologist & ANTSA Team Member, ANTSA Pty Ltd
The period between therapy sessions is a critical yet often unsupported part of the mental health journey. Many clients experience fluctuating distress levels, difficulty applying therapeutic strategies, and disengagement, while clinicians face challenges in maintaining continuity of care.
This presentation explores the potential of AI-driven tools and digital interventions to bridge this gap, providing:
Real-time monitoring to track client progress.
AI-assisted interventions that enhance self-guided support while ensuring clinician oversight.
Automated prompts and psychoeducation to help clients apply strategies outside sessions.
Secure journalling and mood tracking to support self-reflection.
By integrating evidence-based technology into practice, clinicians can enhance client engagement, reduce therapy dropouts, and improve long-term outcomes, without increasing their workload.
Why This Matters Now
With rising mental health concerns globally, it’s time to integrate AI and digital tools responsibly into therapeutic care. This is not about replacing clinicians—it’s about empowering them with tools that enhance human-led therapy.
This session will explore how ANTSA is already making an impact and how AI-driven digital tools can be ethically and effectively integrated into mental health care.
Key Takeaways
✅ How AI and digital tools can complement traditional therapy, keeping clients engaged.
✅ Strategies to reduce clinician burnout by automating routine tasks.
✅ Practical strategies for using technology to enhance engagement between sessions.
✅ Insights on reducing clinician burnout without compromising care quality.
The presentation will highlight real-world applications and future directions, ensuring a practical and insightful discussion. While various platforms are emerging in this space, examples such as ANTSA demonstrate how digital tools can be developed with a clinician-first approach, ensuring professional oversight remains central.
11:40 AM - 11:50 AM
44910 - The Impact of Social Media Usage on Adolescent Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
The rapid rise in the popularity of social media platforms has raised concerns regarding their potential effects on mental health, particularly among adolescents. Understanding the influence of social media use among adolescents on their psychological well-being is vital as these digital spaces become integral to daily communication. This systematic literature review investigates the correlation between social media use and depressive symptoms in adolescents, aiming to provide a clearer picture of this complex relationship.
A comprehensive search was conducted across databases, including CINAHL, Medline, Scopus, APA, and Web of Science, for articles published from 2000 to 2025. The initial search yielded 2,667 articles. After rigorous screening for relevance and duplication, 48 studies were included in the final analysis, encompassing 94 correlations and a total sample size of 115,096 participants. This systematic approach allowed for a robust aggregation of data regarding the interplay between social media usage and depression among young individuals.
Using a random-effects model, the overall pooled correlation was determined to be 0.20 (95% CI: 0.17, 0.23) with a p-value < 0.0001, indicating a weak positive correlation between social media use and depressive symptoms. This suggests that higher levels of social media engagement may be associated with increased depressive symptoms, although the strength of this correlation is relatively weak. Moreover, the analysis indicated significant heterogeneity among the included studies, as evidenced by a high variance (τ² = 0.02, 95% CI: 0.02-0.23) and an I² statistic of 94% (95% CI: 93-95%). This high degree of variability points to differences in study design, population characteristics, and measurement tools, warranting further investigation to uncover underlying factors contributing to these disparities. In addition, the prediction interval ranged from -0.10 to 4.46, suggesting that future studies may report cases where social media use could potentially provide protective effects against depression in youths. This finding opens avenues for further exploration into the characteristics of social media interactions that may contribute positively to youth mental health.
Therefore, while this review identifies a weak yet significant positive correlation between social media usage and adolescent depressive symptoms, the high heterogeneity among studies suggests the need for caution in interpretation. Future research should focus on longitudinal studies and the qualitative aspects of social media engagement to identify the specific elements that exacerbate or mitigate depressive symptoms in young users. An in-depth understanding of the relationship between social media use and mental health is essential for developing effective interventions and promoting healthier online environments for adolescents.
11:50 AM - 12:00 PM
47218 - Using AI/ML to Translate Youth Language into a Clinical Context to Support Frontline Staff
Miss Jocelyn Rankin, Innovation Analyst, Kids Help Phone
We have leveraged our unique dataset of more than 40 million de-identified messages as well survey results from more than 1 million conversations to advance the use of AI/ML in delivering digital mental health services. This is one of the richest and most unique sources of insights for emerging mental health trends in Canada. We uses Natural Language Processing and other advanced analytics to extract unique insights from youth language as it relates to mental health topics. This analysis allows us to understand how youth talk about topics like climate anxiety, school stress, family relationships, and current events in their own words. Our goal is to expand our understanding of youth language as it relates to mental health to inform service design, prevention, and a general understanding of the complexities of youth language as it evolves over time.
We will present results from our research model which can identify the top clinical issue in a conversation transcript with 90% accuracy. We will go into detail on use cases in developing automation for frontline staff and personalized recommendations for youth who are experiencing feelings for the first time. We will also share lessons learned and common hurdles in moving from applied research into product development. Attendees will walk away with a better understanding of how to set their organization up for using AI/ML, including:
- Developing use cases that are suited for AI/ML
- Ensuring adoption of AI/ML accounts for bias
- Using open-source technology (free) to develop use cases
- The importance of investing in product development – not just research
- Change management needs for frontline staff
Our use of AI/ML has the potential to transform mental health service provision, offering scalable and impactful solutions to address youth mental health challenges.
12:00 PM - 12:10 PM
47367 - A Digital Connected Care Hub Transforming Access to Integrated Health and Social Support Services
Whakarongorau Aotearoa, New Zealand’s national provider of telehealth services, has recently introduced a nationwide GP appointment booking capability powered by Octans Care—a digital connected care platform developed by Valentia Technologies in partnership with Whakarongorau. This deployment marks a significant milestone in digitally enabling frontline services, allowing Healthline clinicians to seamlessly book GP appointments for clients across the country. While this functionality currently supports clinical pathways, the broader vision for Octans Care is to serve as a digital connected care hub—a central digital gateway where individuals can access and navigate a wide range of services, including mental health and social support. This presentation explores how the digital infrastructure behind the GP booking initiative is capable of to be extended to transform the delivery of mental health services. It offers a forward-looking view of how Valentia’s platform, could enable a more joined up, accessible, and client-centred approach to mental health support. The session will cover: What is a digital connected care hub and why it matters: A space where clients are guided to the right support at the right time, providers can collaborate across boundaries, and service delivery is coordinated, rather than siloed. Octans Care in action: A look at how the platform currently supports the GP booking workflow—focusing on interoperability, real-time availability, and intelligent routing. Opportunities for mental health: How the platform capabilities could support mental health triage, service navigation, referral management, and follow-up care through digital-first channels. Key features for mental health delivery: AI-guided self-assessments, interactive digital agents, personalised service suggestions, and integrated support for whānau, carers, and community providers. Supporting inclusion and equity: How a connected digital experience can overcome barriers related to geography, stigma, or fragmented service pathways, offering individuals a trusted place to start their care journey. Octans Care is not intended to replace people, clinicians, or relationships—it is designed to support them by reducing duplication, improving access, and allowing service providers like Whakarongorau to operate at scale while maintaining human-centred care. While the mental health use case is still in an exploratory phase, this presentation will share the thinking, architecture, and collaboration model behind the platform—highlighting how it could evolve to become a single, integrated access point for health and social support services. By attending this session, participants will gain practical insight into: How to lay the foundation for a digital mental health ecosystem; The importance of co-design between technology enablers and service providers; What it takes to create a scalable and inclusive connected care experience;
12:10 PM - 12:20 PM
39897 - AI Chatbot as a Kurdish Mental Health Clinician: A Digital Mental Health Program
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming mental health care, but Kurdish-speaking populations remain excluded due to the lack of linguistically and culturally adapted AI solutions. Mental health disparities among Kurdish-speaking communities, many of whom face conflict, displacement, and trauma, highlight the urgent need for accessible digital interventions.
This work introduces a first-of-its-kind AI chatbot that functions as a Kurdish mental health clinician, offering screening, diagnosis, psychological guidance, and counseling in the Kurdish language. As part of a larger digital mental health program, this initiative leverages technology to enhance accessibility, reduce stigma, and provide immediate psychological support to Kurdish-speaking populations.
1. Addressing the Lack of AI Mental Health Tools for Kurdish Speakers
•More than 40 million people speak Kurdish, yet no AI chatbot or initiative exists for Kurdish-language mental health support
•Barriers Kurdish speakers face in accessing psychological care (language, stigma, accessibility)
•The role of AI in bridging gaps for underserved and conflict-affected communities
2. The Development of the Kurdish AI Mental Health Chatbot
•Utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Kurdish dialects
•AI-driven mental health screening, diagnosis, and counseling
•Integration of clinically validated psychological assessment tools
•Training the AI model with culturally adapted responses and interventions
3. Ethical, Technical, and Implementation Challenges
•Data security, privacy, and ethical concerns in AI-driven counseling
•Bias reduction and ensuring culturally appropriate mental health support
•Overcoming limitations in Kurdish-language AI datasets
4. Scaling AI Mental Health Solutions for the Kurdish Population
•Expanding the chatbot’s capabilities to support voice recognition and teletherapy
•Collaboration with Kurdish-speaking psychologists and healthcare providers
•Integrating the chatbot into existing MHPSS frameworks and humanitarian responses
By introducing AI as a Kurdish mental health clinician, this initiative represents a groundbreaking leap in digital mental health support, providing millions of Kurdish speakers access to essential psychological care for the first time. As part of a larger digital mental health program, this chatbot marks a critical step in ensuring equitable access to mental health services for Kurdish-speaking communities.
12:20 PM - 12:30 PM
45427 - The Development of a Digi-Physical Healthcare Model: Perspectives and Workforce Implications
The transition from research and innovation to routine provision of digital mental health interventions is a complex process, shaped by systemic conditions that determine how digital solutions are implemented and used. Reimbursement models, definitions, preferred models of care, and healthcare laws all shape the digital landscape.
This presentation offers an overview of current developments in Sweden, highlighting government initiatives and regulatory frameworks that influence the dissemination of digital mental health interventions within the national healthcare system. “Digital first” recommendations, definitions of remote care, reimbursement models, technology-related guidelines, and the use of digiphysical care models are discussed. The implications for workforce planning and professional development for psychologists within mental health services are also explored.
12:30 PM - 12:40 PM
42335 - Lessons from a Multinational Partnership for a Suicide Prevention mHealth Application, the Hope App
The proliferation of digital technologies to support suicide prevention and care underscores the need for research on their effectiveness, feasibility, and implementation. This presentation shares insights from a multinational research partnership centered on a suicide prevention app and offers recommendations for developing and implementing impactful digital tools in this field.
Digital tools such as mobile apps are being increasingly integrated into care in the field of suicide prevention. The Hope App, a suicide safety-planning mHealth application, developed at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), is an example of one such digital tool. Safety-planning is a clinically supported intervention for suicide management and care. An international collaboration between CAMH, the University of Oxford and the NHS Foundation Trust sought to evaluate, iterate, and implement the Hope App in a multinational context through multiple research studies. This presentation will synthesize findings from three studies- 1) a rapid review on the collection and use of digital data in the field of suicide prevention, 2) an app review identifying and evaluating characteristics and features of suicide prevention apps available in Canada and the United Kingdom and 3) a rapid review on the help-seeking needs of individuals in contact with mental health services. Our goal is to synthesize evidence across these studies into a cohesive framework that guides the effective implementation and optimization of mobile applications for suicide prevention and care in diverse healthcare settings. We will present recommendations for developing and implementing digital tools in this field, including 1) key considerations for the digital data collection and use, and 2) ways to bridge the gaps between help-seeking needs related to suicide and the features and functionalities of existing suicide prevention mobile apps
12:40 PM - 12:50 PM
45320 - Advancing Mental Health Equity: A Culturally Informed Approach for Minority Communities
Mental health is not only a cornerstone of personal well-being but a critical determinant of thriving families, workplaces, and societies. Yet nearly 1 billion people globally live with mental health disorders—incurring a staggering economic burden of $2 to $5 trillion annually—while the specific struggles of marginalized populations remain overlooked. Women and children from minority communities, in particular, face compounded risks and systemic barriers, especially in workplace settings where access to mental health care is limited and the psychological toll of work-related injuries is often ignored. This initiative pioneers a culturally responsive, community-driven approach that centers the unique needs of minority communities. Grounded in the biopsychosocial model and informed by the Global Consortium for the Prevention of Depression, the program designs tailored resources that reflect the lived experiences of the communities it serves. At its core is a deep commitment to cultural competence and grassroots engagement, ensuring interventions are not only evidence-based but also relevant and resonant. A defining innovation of the program is its focus on dyadic coping—strengthening the capacity of families to collectively navigate mental health challenges and recover from trauma. By leveraging the power of interpersonal support within households, the initiative aims to mitigate the long-term effects of psychological distress, reduce healthcare costs, and foster resilient, healthier communities. This transformative model offers a powerful framework for promoting mental health equity—empowering minority women, uplifting families, and ultimately reimagining how mental wellness is supported across diverse populations.