Threats to Global Mental Health From Unregulated Digital Phenotyping and Neuromarketing: Recommendations for COVID-19 Era and Beyond

Abstract

The new era of digitalized knowledge and information technology (IT) has improved efficiency in all medical fields, and digital health solutions are becoming the norm. There has also been an upsurge in utilizing digital solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the unmet mental healthcare needs, especially for those unable to afford in-person office-based therapy sessions or those living in remote rural areas with limited access to mental healthcare providers. Despite these benefits, there are significant concerns regarding the widespread use of such technologies in the healthcare system. A few of those concerns are a potential breach in the patients' privacy, confidentiality, and the agency of patients being at risk of getting used for marketing or data harnessing purposes. Digital phenotyping aims to detect and categorize an individual's behavior, activities, interests, and psychological features to properly customize future communications or mental care for that individual. Neuromarketing seeks to investigate an individual's neuronal response(s) (cortical and subcortical autonomic) characteristics and uses this data to direct the person into purchasing merchandise of interest, or shaping individual's opinion in consumer, social or political decision making, etc. This commentary's primary concern is the intersection of these two concepts that would be an inevitable threat, more so, in the post-COVID era when disparities would be exaggerated globally. We also addressed the potential “dark web” applications in this intersection, worsening the crisis. We intend to raise attention toward this new threat, as the impacts might be more damming in low-income settings or/with vulnerable populations. Legal, health ethics, and government regulatory processes looking at broader impacts of digital marketing need to be in place.

A challenging case of COVID-19: a COVID-19 positive adolescent presented with severe diabetic ketoacidosis, resistant hypertension

“…Neurological complications in COVID-19 infected patients are less discussed in the literature. The patients with COVID-19 infection can present with acute encephalopathy and changes in their level of consciousness [ 25 – 29 ]. Neurologic complications in the patients with COVID-19 are common in the hospitalized patients.…”

Expanding the role of justice in secondary research using digital psychological data.

“…Importantly, we place to one side commercial use of DPD, which raises distinct and complex issues (Akbarialiabad et al, 2021; Barnett & Torous, 2019). For instance, in 2022, CrisisTextLine (a large crisis intervention nonprofit, of which one of the authors is an unpaid advisor) was criticized for agreeing to share anonymized transcripts of crisis intervention conversations with a for-profit company designing artificial intelligence (AI) conversational agents (Hicks & Lawlor, 2022).…”

Interdisciplinary perspectives on digital technologies for global mental health

“…By fostering stakeholder engagement between public and private health programs, policymakers can address this and inform the public. In addition, the curriculum of mental health training should include DMHTs and the ethical issues it raises to promote digital health literacy at all levels [ 38 ].…”