The Hol Picture

Our Insights on Real-World Evidence and Behavioral Health

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mental health

Exciting government-supported collaboration will drive improved mental health in the U.K.

The HM Treasury in the United Kingdom recently announced an exciting and truly forward-looking initiative for healthcare: a package of government funding, called the Life Sci for Growth package, to fuel research and bring treatments to patients faster. There are many impressive projects being funded, from clinical trial improvements to preparation efforts for future public health emergencies. 

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Capitalizing on untapped value: Extracting environmental stressors from clinical notes via natural language processing

Consider an emergency room doctor who is caring for a patient who has been hospitalized after a suicide attempt. When she consults his chart, she can see that he has been diagnosed with depression, but the structured data that is immediately available does not provide much additional context. 

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an illustration of women cooking together

Considering socioenvironmental factors in clinical and research settings

Imagine that you are a therapist seeing a new patient for the first time. The patient says that while she has no history of clinical depression, she has been feeling really sad lately and has lost interest in the things she normally enjoys, such as cooking and creating new recipes. 

When you start to ask questions, however, you begin to uncover the factors that may be impacting what your patient is currently experiencing. She tells you she has recently moved across the country and has had trouble finding a new community where she feels connected. Because she feels so sad most of the time, she has stopped calling anyone from her previous home, telling you that she “doesn’t want to bring them down.” You hypothesize that the recent drastic changes in her environment may be contributing to the symptoms of depression she describes.

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Nature and nurture: How environment and biology shape mental health

As a mental health clinician and researcher, I have seen firsthand how our understanding of the role that biological and socioenvironmental factors play in mental health has evolved over time. For many years, the debate over nature vs. nurture dominated discussions in the field, but more recent models have focused on the interaction between genes and the environment, such as the diathesis stress model.

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New York Digital Health 100: Reflections on the City’s Impact

This week, we shared the exciting and humbling news that we’ve been named as part of Digital Health New York’s New York Digital Health 100 list, a recognition that highlights the most exciting and innovative digital health startups in the New York region. Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Health New York, Bunny Ellerin, describes the list as “an incredibly diverse, innovative and forward-thinking set of companies and leaders that are making an impact on the future of healthcare.” 

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SAMHSA survey highlights importance of real-world data in behavioral health

Earlier this month,  the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released its annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which examined substance use and mental health data from 2021. Although the survey has been administered since 1971, SAMHSA called this year’s “the most comprehensive report on substance use and mental health indicators” that the organization has released to date.

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