Brenda Marie Rivers
Amazon Web Services partnered with social media platform developer RallyPoint, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Harvard University to develop a machine learning model that can detect mental health issues among veterans, Nextgov reported Friday.
Under an agreement with VA, the Amazon Machine Learning Solutions Lab worked with RallyPoint and Harvard’s Nock Lab mental health professionals to utilize data science for identifying “high-value use cases†among users of the military-focused social network.
AWS provided data-labeling services as well as its SageMaker managed-service platform to train a machine-learning model to detect signs of risk in anonymous public posts on RallyPoint.
The team is accepting feedback on the effort and plans to further develop the model in the coming months. They also seek to provide RallyPoint users with access to mental health programs, support groups and hotlines, according to the report.
Dave Gowel, CEO of RallyPoint, said the effort is aimed at supporting government efforts to address veterans’ mental health issues through programs such as VA’s Suicide Prevention Program and the President's Roadmap to End a National Tragedy of Suicide.
The team effort builds on RallyPoint’s memorandum of understanding with VA to improve veteran interactions with communities signed in 2018.
