Digital Mental Health: The Answer to the Global Mental Health Crisis?
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Abstract
Digital mental health interventions are often touted as the solution to the global mental health crisis. However, moving mental health care from the hands of professionals and into digital apps may further isolate individuals who need human connection the most. In this commentary, we argue that people, our society’s greatest resource, are as ubiquitous as technology. Thus, we argue that research focused on using technology to support all people in delivering mental health prevention and intervention deserves greater attention in the coming decade.
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Digital technologies and AI have been proposed as potential solutions to these challenges.
“Digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been proposed as potential solutions to these challenges [Rudd and Beidas, 2020, Taylor et al., 2020, Kola et al., 2021].”
From Closing the accessibility gap to mental health treatment with a personalized self-referral chatbot (2024) · cites this paper as Rudd and Beidas, 2020
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- Authors
- Rudd, B. N., & Beidas, R. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (US)
- Corresponding author
- Rudd, Brittany N
- Venue
- JMIR Mental Health
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications Inc.
- Published
- 2020-06-02
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- e18472
- ISSN
- 2368-7959 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7298632
- OpenAlex
- W3030399267
- Cited by
- 81
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 8.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- JMIR Mental Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (P50MH113840, T32MH109433)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Keywords
- digital mental health, mental health apps, social isolation, human connection, mental health prevention, mental health interventions, technology in mental health care
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