On the State of Social Media Data for Mental Health Research

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the current state of social media data used in mental health research, highlighting data challenges and providing a standardized directory to facilitate future meta-analyses.

Contribution

It introduces an open-source, annotated directory of mental health datasets from social media, enabling better assessment of data-related challenges in the field.

Findings

Data availability limits research progress

Standardized schema aids meta-analysis

Open-source directory promotes transparency

Abstract

Data-driven methods for mental health treatment and surveillance have become a major focus in computational science research in the last decade. However, progress in the domain, in terms of both medical understanding and system performance, remains bounded by the availability of adequate data. Prior systematic reviews have not necessarily made it possible to measure the degree to which data-related challenges have affected research progress. In this paper, we offer an analysis specifically on the state of social media data that exists for conducting mental health research. We do so by introducing an open-source directory of mental health datasets, annotated using a standardized schema to facilitate meta-analysis.