Mahadia Tunga

Davis David

mahadia@dlab.or.tz

davis@dlab.or.tz

connect@dlab.or.tz

www.dlab.or.tz

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Our Vision

Africa where data is frequently and effectively used to inform policy and decision making at all levels.

Our Mission

To strengthen data ecosystems and data usage in innovation, policy and decision making for health and prosperity in Tanzania and Africa.

Innovation &

Entrepreneurship

Data Science �solutions

Capacity Development

Partnership &

Engagement

Our Pillars

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Stats of Mental Health

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• According to WHO, close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds.�
• Research shows that one of the most important causes of suicide is mental illness-most often Depression, Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression) and Substance Use Disorders.

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• "1 in 7 children and adolescents in Sub-Saharan countries struggle with mental health illness." - Dr Suluma Aslan from Mirembe National Mental Hospital�
• In Tanzania, 5 out of 100,000 people have committed suicide out of mental health problems in the last 5 years.�
• There are 0.5 mental health experts per 100K peoples in Tanzania, which shows there is a significant shortage of mental health experts to support people struggling with mental health.

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www.dlab.or.tz

www.dlab.or.tz

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Mental Illness

Mental illnesses are health conditions that affect your emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these).��Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.

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mental health conditions.

• Depression
• anxiety
• bipolar disorder
• Eating disorder
• Personality Disorder

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Data science can help us to:

• Diagnosis: Collect insights into patterns that are typically difficult to detect.
• Decision Making: unlock information hidden in data to assist clinical decision making.
• Treatment: Create tools to predict which antidepressant would work best for someone

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The Role of Data Science in Mental Health

• Anger
• Panic Attack
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

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www.dlab.or.tz

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Maria is a Swahili Conversational Artificial Intelligence (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy chatbot) that automates mental health assessment and pre-therapy process to help people struggling with mental health problems in Tanzania.

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Project partners:

This project is developed by a collaboration of NEUROTECH, Tanzania Data Lab(Dlab), and Mental Health Association.

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We aim to support many mental health disorders assessments with this Conversation AI but currently, it will be focused on only three(3) of them which are:-

1. PHQ-9 Depression Test Questionnaire(describe)
2. Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7)(describe)
3. SRQ-25 Self-reporting questionnaire (assess levels of psychological distress)

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Maria: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Chatbot