In the UK, there are several research groups working in the area of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for mental health. This page will provide supporting information on activities of this working group, which aims to become a place for sharing experiences and enabling further cross-institutional collaborations.
First meeting: Natural Language Processing (NLP) for mental health research
CUSP London hosted the first working group meeting on Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Mental Health Research on Jan. 15th 2019. This working group is enabled by the EPSRC-funded UK network HealTex, which brings together researchers across the country working on health text analysis.
In this meeting, we discussed ongoing projects in this area and identified challenges and potential collaboration points for advancing the field. Using NLP methods for mental health research is of importance because of the inherent nature of mental health related data: electronic health records from mental health services contain a large amount of documentation in free text; social media data is important for understanding user-generated information related to mental health; and with the increase of user-generated sensor data, there is a need to tailor NLP methods to enable richer analysis capabilities for technology-based interventions. The urban environment is known to have an impact on mental health, and NLP methods could play an important role in making these links.
Participants: Prof. Goran Nenadic (University of Manchester/Alan Turing Institute), Prof. Robert Stewart, Dr. Angus Roberts and Dr. Sumithra Velupillai (King’s College London/NIHR Mausley Biomedical Research Centre), Dr. Elvira Perez Vallejos and Yunfei Long (The University of Nottingham/NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre Mental Health & Technology Theme at the University of Nottingham), Dr. Eiman Kanjo (Nottingham Trent University), Dr. Alejo Nevado-Helgado (Oxford University), Dr. Maria Liakata (University of Warwick/Alan Turing Institute) and Maximilian Hofer (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne).
