How Google’s ‘ten things we know to be true’could guide the development of mental health mobile apps
Abstract
From 2011 to 2030, mental health conditions are projected to cost the global economy $16 trillion through lost labor and capital output. The gold standard of psychological interventions, one-on-one therapy, is too costly and too labor-intensive to keep up with the projected growth in demand for mental health services. Therefore, new solutions are needed to improve the efficiency of mental health care delivery and to increase patient self-care. Because 85 percent of the world's population has wireless signal coverage, there is an unprecedented opportunity for mobile technologies to incorporate psychological self-care into people's daily lives and relieve workforce shortages. In this article, we suggest that policy makers look to technology innovators for guidance. For example, Google's principles, called "Ten Things We Know To Be True," are useful for understanding the drivers of success in mobile technologies. For principles such as "focus on the user and all else will follow," we identify examples of how evidence-based mobile mental health technologies could increase patient self-care and reduce the demand for one-on-one psychological intervention.
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The insufficient number of mental health workers has prompted the utilization of technological advancement to meet the needs of people affected by mental health conditions.
“The insufficient number of mental health workers has prompted the utilization of technological advancement to meet the needs of the people who are affected by mental health conditions [5].”
From An overview of the features of chatbots in mental health: A scoping review (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
Due to the relative lack of mental health resources, it is difficult to provide mental health interventions using the one-on-one traditional gold standard approach.
“Due to the relative lack of mental health resources, it is difficult to provide mental health interventions using the one-on-one traditional gold standard approach [5].”
From An overview of the features of chatbots in mental health: A scoping review (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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- Authors
- Jones, S. P., Patel, V., Saxena, S., Radcliffe, N., Ali Al-Marri, S., & Darzi, A.
- Affiliations
- Imperial College London (GB)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (GB)
- World Health Organization (CH)
- Salih Ali Al-Marri is assistant secretary general for medical affairs in the Supreme Council of Health, in Doha, Qatar.
- Venue
- Health Affairs
- Publisher
- Health Affairs Publishing, LLC
- Published
- 2014-09
- Volume
- 33
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1603-1611
- ISSN
- 0278-2715 (ISSN-L)
- 1544-5208
- OpenAlex
- W2114927386
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 9.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Health Affairs (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- World Health Organization
- Wellcome Trust (084674, 96735, 100714)
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (NF-SI-0510-10186)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Health, Technology, Consumer Behavior
- Keywords
- mental health apps, patient self-care, mental health workforce shortage, cost of mental illness, user-centered design, mental health policy
- MeSH terms
- Mental Disorders, Humans, Mental Health Services, Self Care, Evidence-Based Medicine, Search Engine, Mobile Applications
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