Can you track a child's mental health? Cincinnati Children's spends $10M to find a way

Terry DeMio
Cincinnati Enquirer

A trip to the pediatrician's office one day could include routine tracking of your child's mental health, similar to the way doctors check kids' physical growth through a height and weight chart. Roughly 1 in 6 American children over age 2 have a mental, behavioral or developmental disorder.

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center on Monday announced a $10 million investment in a project that, researchers say, will lead to early intervention of mental health disorders – as a way to treat the disorders and prevent dire outcomes, including suicide.

"If we do something early, a lot of times kids get better," said John Pestian, Ph.D., a Cincinnati Children's expert in building neuropsychiatric artificial intelligence algorithms and the co-principal investigator for the new project. 

The project, called "Mental Health Trajectories,” will involve more than 25 scientists from nine research divisions within Cincinnati Children’s and collaborators at the University of Cincinnati, the University of Colorado and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

They will assemble large amounts of anonymized data that signal emerging mental health issues.

The data includes medical records, genomic information, environmental exposures, economic disruption, traumas that parents endure, substance use disorders, bullying and systemic racism. The data will be analyzed by Oak Ridge’s powerful computers including Summit – currently the nation’s fastest supercomputer, located at the national laboratory, a U.S. Energy Department lab in Tennessee managed by UT Battelle LLC.

The results will create a trajectory of illness for depression, anxiety and suicide ideation, Pestian said.

An image of Summit, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory supercomputer.

"Then, much like we use pediatric growth charts for height, weight and head circumference to identify potential health risks, we can also use these new mental health trajectories to identify early mental illness," said Pestian, who holds dual appointments at Cincinnati Children’s and the national lab.

“Before we can cure and prevent, we have to understand the real origins of mental illness, especially the roles of biological, thought and environment factors," Pestian said. "Together these components are very, very complex and can only be understood with the help of the world's most powerful computers.” 

More than 17% of U.S. children aged 2 years to 8 years old have a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder. Anxiety and depression is becoming more common in children over time, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in children and adults age 10 to 34.

“The medical community has understood for many years that mental illnesses have been severely overlooked in terms of research priority and availability of effective treatment options," said Dr. Tina Cheng, chair of pediatrics at UC and director of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation. "And yet, so many of the families we serve are living with the burden of seeking hard-to-obtain help for their children in need."

She said Cincinnati Children's has been committed to improving mental health care for a number of years, including with its $99 million expansion now underway at its College Hill facility.

Cincinnati Children's plans $99 million center for kids with behavioral health care needs

Dr. Tracy Glauser, the project's co-principal investigator and associate director of the research foundation, said it will likely be several years before the results of the work will be applied in clinical practice. Even so, she said, "We believe we will be ready to publish some of our initial findings within the next six months."

In addition to the funding commitment announced Monday, an agreement has been established with the Oak Ridge center, and work has begun to prepare the data for initial analysis through the supercomputer. Much more data, and many more “runs,” will be needed before a proposed set of mental health trajectories will be complete, Cincinnati Children's officials said.

Cincinnati Children’s has launched a campaign to raise funds to augment its initial investment. Those who would like more information or to make a gift, are asked to contact Ashley Titus at 513-803-6593 or ashley.titus@cchmc.org.