While many programs and initiatives have been implemented to address the prevalence of substance abuse among homeless youth in the United States, they don’t always include data-driven insights about environmental and psychological factors that could contribute to an individual’s likelihood of developing a substance use disorder. Now, an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm could help predict susceptibility to substance use disorder among young homeless individuals, and suggest personalized rehabilitation programs for highly susceptible homeless youth.
Now, an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm developed by researchers at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State could help predict susceptibility to substance use disorder among young homeless individuals, and suggest personalized rehabilitation programs for highly susceptible homeless youth.
«Proactive prevention of substance use disorder among homeless youth is much more desirable than reactive mitigation strategies such as medical treatments for the disorder and other related interventions,» said Amulya Yadav, assistant professor of information sciences and technology and principal investigator on the project. «Unfortunately, most previous attempts at proactive prevention have been ad-hoc in their implementation.»
«To assist policymakers in devising effective programs and policies in a principled manner, it would be beneficial to develop AI and machine learning solutions which can automatically uncover a comprehensive set of factors associated with substance use disorder among homeless youth,» added Maryam Tabar, a doctoral student in informatics and lead author on the project paper that will be presented at the Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) conference in late August.
In that project, the research team built the model using a dataset collected from approximately 1,400 homeless youth, ages 18 to 26, in six U.S. states. The dataset was collected by the Research, Education and Advocacy Co-Lab for Youth Stability and Thriving (REALYST), which includes Anamika Barman-Adhikari, assistant professor of social work at the University of Denver and co-author of the paper.
The researchers then identified environmental, psychological and behavioral factors associated with substance use disorder among them — such as criminal history, victimization experiences and mental health characteristics. They found that adverse childhood experiences and physical street victimization were more strongly associated with substance use disorder than other types of victimization (such as sexual victimization) among homeless youth. Additionally, PTSD and depression were found to be more strongly associated with substance use disorder than other mental health disorders among this population, according to the researchers.
Story Source: Materials provided by Penn State. Original written by Jessica Hallman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.