Posted on Mar 2, 2023
VA supports innovative programs to reduce Veteran deaths by suicide
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Can artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced technologies prevent Veteran deaths by suicide?
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is betting on it, recently awarding $11.5 million to 10 winners of its “Mission Daybreak” challenge, launched last May.
Award recipients are pursuing a variety of innovations aimed at addressing VA’s top clinical priority of preventing Veteran suicide. These include digital tools that predict self-harm risk patterns, promote resiliency and safety, and provide targeted crisis interventions and treatment.
“Our Veterans need and deserve suicide prevention solutions that meet them where they are, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, and that’s exactly what Mission Daybreak has delivered,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal in a statement. “By drawing on a range of focus areas and life experiences, the Mission Daybreak winners have developed innovations that will save Veterans’ lives — and there’s nothing more important than that.”
VA officials said they hope these emerging solutions can accelerate a reduction in Veteran deaths by suicide, which, as VA reported last year, decreased in 2020 for the second year in a row.
VA distributed $20 million in cash prizes during the 10-month competition. In September 2022, VA awarded $8.5 million to 30 finalists and 10 promising projects under Phase 1. In February 2023, VA announced the 10 winners of Phase 2, who share the remaining $11.5 million. Two first-place winners received $3 million, three second-place winners received $1 million and five third-place winners received $500,000.
Solutions of the two organizations winning the top prizes are:
• Stop Soldier Suicide’s Black Box Project, which aims to better predict which Veterans are likely to die by suicide and develop more precise interventions. The solution uses machine learning to analyze data from the digital devices of Veterans who died by suicide to identify never-before-seen patterns of risk. Developers theorize that the identification of behaviors leading up to suicide could be used to enhance suicide-prevention strategies. Details: https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/news/mdb-winner.
• Televëda’s Project Hózhó, which aims to prevent suicide among Navajo Veterans through a mental health app that promotes traditional healing techniques such as storytelling and social connectedness. It is billed as the first application of its type to focus on the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Veteran community. A 2022 study published in the journal Medical Care found that AIAN Veterans, particularly younger Veterans, may be at higher risk of death by suicide. Details: https://www.televeda.com/press-media/va-names-televeda-a-first-place-winner-in-20-million-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides.
Three second-place winners are:
• ReflexAI, an AI-powered training tool for use by the Veterans Crisis Line. VA said the tool uses simulation, feedback and quality assurance to train and maintain crisis line teams prepared to respond to Veterans seeking help. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reflexai-announces-googleorg-fellowship-and-1m-in-funding-to-support-the-mental-health-of-veterans-301655393.html.
• Sentinel, a mobile app that is designed to encourage the safe storage of weapons, medication and other lethal means of suicide. Details: https://www.sentinelsafetyteam.com/news.
• Battle Buddy, a mobile health and wellness application developed by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the SoldierStrong Foundation. It uses interactive AI content from VA’s Suicide Safety Planning program to conduct Veteran safety check-ins. Veterans can opt to connect their wearable sensors to this “virtual human” to further monitor their well-being. Details: https://www.soldierstrong.org/thoughts-on-our-nation.
Five third-place winners are:
• Even Health, for The Cabana Project, a virtual reality-based platform to build resiliency among Veteran survivors of suicide. Details: https://www.evenhealth.com/press/even-health-named-a-finalist-in-vas-20-million-mission-daybreak.
• NeuroFlow, for a technology platform that can identify early warning signs of mental health issues and suggest tailored interventions. Details: https://www.neuroflow.com/va-names-neuroflow-a-winner-in-20-million-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides.
• FORGE’s Overwatch Project, a peer-to-peer intervention program about firearm safety modeled after the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign. Details: https://overwatchproject.org.
• OxfordVR’s gameChange, an immersive virtual reality treatment for mental health issues that has also been granted breakthrough device status by the Food and Drug Administration. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/va-awards-oxfordvr-500-000-in-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides-301749412.html.
• Team Guidehouse — a partnership between Red Hat and Philip Held, Ph.D., of Rush University Medical Center — for its platform integrating into health records data related to social determinants of health and social media postings to identify Veterans at risk of self-harm in real time. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/team-guidehouse-takes-3rd-place-in-vas-mission-daybreak-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides-301748158.html.
The 10 winning solutions were selected from more than 1,300 proposals submitted by Veterans, Veteran service organizations, community-based organizations, companies and universities. Proposed solutions had to be Veteran-centered, impactful, innovative, evidence-based, scalable and ethical, according to the award evaluation criteria.
Learn more
• Read VA’s news release announcing the Mission Daybreak winners: https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5857
• Visit the Mission Daybreak website: https://www.missiondaybreak.net
If you are a Veteran in crisis or are concerned about one, contact the Veterans Crisis Line by calling 988 and pressing 1 or visiting https://www.veteranscrisisline.net to chat live with an expert qualified to support Veterans.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is betting on it, recently awarding $11.5 million to 10 winners of its “Mission Daybreak” challenge, launched last May.
Award recipients are pursuing a variety of innovations aimed at addressing VA’s top clinical priority of preventing Veteran suicide. These include digital tools that predict self-harm risk patterns, promote resiliency and safety, and provide targeted crisis interventions and treatment.
“Our Veterans need and deserve suicide prevention solutions that meet them where they are, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, and that’s exactly what Mission Daybreak has delivered,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal in a statement. “By drawing on a range of focus areas and life experiences, the Mission Daybreak winners have developed innovations that will save Veterans’ lives — and there’s nothing more important than that.”
VA officials said they hope these emerging solutions can accelerate a reduction in Veteran deaths by suicide, which, as VA reported last year, decreased in 2020 for the second year in a row.
VA distributed $20 million in cash prizes during the 10-month competition. In September 2022, VA awarded $8.5 million to 30 finalists and 10 promising projects under Phase 1. In February 2023, VA announced the 10 winners of Phase 2, who share the remaining $11.5 million. Two first-place winners received $3 million, three second-place winners received $1 million and five third-place winners received $500,000.
Solutions of the two organizations winning the top prizes are:
• Stop Soldier Suicide’s Black Box Project, which aims to better predict which Veterans are likely to die by suicide and develop more precise interventions. The solution uses machine learning to analyze data from the digital devices of Veterans who died by suicide to identify never-before-seen patterns of risk. Developers theorize that the identification of behaviors leading up to suicide could be used to enhance suicide-prevention strategies. Details: https://stopsoldiersuicide.org/news/mdb-winner.
• Televëda’s Project Hózhó, which aims to prevent suicide among Navajo Veterans through a mental health app that promotes traditional healing techniques such as storytelling and social connectedness. It is billed as the first application of its type to focus on the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Veteran community. A 2022 study published in the journal Medical Care found that AIAN Veterans, particularly younger Veterans, may be at higher risk of death by suicide. Details: https://www.televeda.com/press-media/va-names-televeda-a-first-place-winner-in-20-million-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides.
Three second-place winners are:
• ReflexAI, an AI-powered training tool for use by the Veterans Crisis Line. VA said the tool uses simulation, feedback and quality assurance to train and maintain crisis line teams prepared to respond to Veterans seeking help. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reflexai-announces-googleorg-fellowship-and-1m-in-funding-to-support-the-mental-health-of-veterans-301655393.html.
• Sentinel, a mobile app that is designed to encourage the safe storage of weapons, medication and other lethal means of suicide. Details: https://www.sentinelsafetyteam.com/news.
• Battle Buddy, a mobile health and wellness application developed by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the SoldierStrong Foundation. It uses interactive AI content from VA’s Suicide Safety Planning program to conduct Veteran safety check-ins. Veterans can opt to connect their wearable sensors to this “virtual human” to further monitor their well-being. Details: https://www.soldierstrong.org/thoughts-on-our-nation.
Five third-place winners are:
• Even Health, for The Cabana Project, a virtual reality-based platform to build resiliency among Veteran survivors of suicide. Details: https://www.evenhealth.com/press/even-health-named-a-finalist-in-vas-20-million-mission-daybreak.
• NeuroFlow, for a technology platform that can identify early warning signs of mental health issues and suggest tailored interventions. Details: https://www.neuroflow.com/va-names-neuroflow-a-winner-in-20-million-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides.
• FORGE’s Overwatch Project, a peer-to-peer intervention program about firearm safety modeled after the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign. Details: https://overwatchproject.org.
• OxfordVR’s gameChange, an immersive virtual reality treatment for mental health issues that has also been granted breakthrough device status by the Food and Drug Administration. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/va-awards-oxfordvr-500-000-in-mission-daybreak-grand-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides-301749412.html.
• Team Guidehouse — a partnership between Red Hat and Philip Held, Ph.D., of Rush University Medical Center — for its platform integrating into health records data related to social determinants of health and social media postings to identify Veterans at risk of self-harm in real time. Details: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/team-guidehouse-takes-3rd-place-in-vas-mission-daybreak-challenge-to-reduce-veteran-suicides-301748158.html.
The 10 winning solutions were selected from more than 1,300 proposals submitted by Veterans, Veteran service organizations, community-based organizations, companies and universities. Proposed solutions had to be Veteran-centered, impactful, innovative, evidence-based, scalable and ethical, according to the award evaluation criteria.
Learn more
• Read VA’s news release announcing the Mission Daybreak winners: https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=5857
• Visit the Mission Daybreak website: https://www.missiondaybreak.net
If you are a Veteran in crisis or are concerned about one, contact the Veterans Crisis Line by calling 988 and pressing 1 or visiting https://www.veteranscrisisline.net to chat live with an expert qualified to support Veterans.
Veterans Affairs (VA)
Suicide
Mental Health
Edited 2 y ago
Posted 2 y ago
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