Connecting veterans' PTSD, unmet social needs to cognitive impairment and dementia
A multi-institutional research team recently reported that veterans with both PTSD and unmet social needs appear to have higher rates of dementia or cognitive impairment years later. The study involved 3,817,970 veterans—and, therefore, millions of data points—so the team relied on support from researchers in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) at UMass Amherst, who…
Researchers from multiple institutions have found a link between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unmet social needs, and an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in veterans. For their study, published in JAMA Network Open, the team analyzed data from 3.8 million veterans, relying on an advanced natural language processing (NLP) system developed by a former UMass Amherst doctoral student, Avijit Mitra.
The NLP system helped identify health-related social needs (HRSNs) such as financial strain, housing instability, and food insecurity, which can impact a person's well-being. Although traditional epidemiological research has primarily relied on coded electronic health records, NLP has shown promise in detecting these factors on a large scale, despite potential biases in the documentation.
The study's findings highlight the potential of AI and NLP in expanding the reach of epidemiological research, paving the way for future collaborations between computer scientists and researchers in various fields while keeping privacy, security, and accountability in mind.
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