The UPF Barcelona School of Management heads a pioneering suicide prevention project using Artificial Intelligence

Ana Freire, the Vice- Dean of Social Impact and Academic Innovation at the UPF Barcelona School of Management is coordinating the project STOP (Suicide prevenTion on social Platforms), a pioneering initiative that uses Artificial Intelligence to study patterns associated with mental health problems, all linked to suicide, depression and eating disorders.

The objective of the STOP project is to help reduce suicide rates in Spain, particularly among young people, for whom, according to statistics from 2022, suicide is the most common cause of death. To tackle this problem, the project runs advertising campaigns nationwide on Instagram and Facebook, highlighting free 24-hour helplines, primarily run by Fundació Esperança en Línia, aimed at anonymous users who match risk profiles.

WhatsApp is replacing telephone calls as the main means of support

In November 2023, the project launched its third campaign, which, as a new development, included not only telephone helpline numbers, but also an emotional support chat service run by the Fundació Ajuda i Esperança, with the collaboration of Barcelona City Council. With funding from the company META, the campaign led to a 1,115% increase in traffic to the chat service compared to the previous three months. Between November 2023 and January 2024,  the Fundació Esperança en Línia dealt with 4,066 enquiries only using the chat tool. The demand was so high that, to ensure the best possible service to children and teenagers, at the end of December, some of the funds earmarked for the Ministry of Health’s Chat 024 service were reallocated to the initiative.

According to Ana Freire, "the results of the third campaign highlight the need to implement more chat lines using WhatsApp, from different institutions, to cater for the huge demand for emotional support effectively".

The power of new technologies to improve these support channels is indisputable. “With the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence, we can detect risk profiles on social media more accurately, enabling more efficient intervention”, explained Freire. Moreover, the use of online chats has facilitated access to immediate and non-invasive emotional support, offering a personalized response on a large scale.

Enric Morist, the Director General of the Fundació Ajuda i Esperança, emphasized that “this collaboration has highlighted a burgeoning group of overwhelmed children and teenagers, showing us that social media can also be the doorway towards improving the mental health of boys and girls”.

This technological advance not only boosts the capacity to provide support, but it also improves the quality of the support offered, adapting more effectively to the users’ needs and maximizing the impact of suicide prevention initiatives.

Target user profile

Data Analytics reveal that the main user profile of people with suicidal thoughts is someone under 39 years old and, in 55.6% of cases, female. With respect to people suffering from depression, 58% are women under 29 years old. In relation to eating disorders, 84% of sufferers are also women under 29.

These profiles are identified using Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics techniques. Using the specialist knowledge of psychologists and psychiatrists, an AI system is trained to classify users, completely anonymously, into different levels of risk, enabling us to study the profile that they all share, and then aim our campaigns effectively at them.