The National Institute of Mental Health awarded a $2.7M grant to Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers to use artificial intelligence technology to predict suicide ideation in patients, according to a Jan. 15 news release.
The five-year grant will support the VUMC research team's use of computational methods for an analysis on suicidal ideation and its relationship to attempted suicide. The researchers will leverage AI and EHR data to predict suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.
The research builds upon VUMC's previous analysis, which relied solely on structured data such as healthcare billing codes. The new research project will include EHR text and data from two biobanks: Vanderbilt's BioVU and the UK Biobank.
De-identified data from BioVU will be linked to de-identified health records for the study. Stanford (Calif.) University researchers will work with VUMC on the study by running genetic analyses on suicidal ideation risk in a second population using data from UK Biobank.