Assessing access: Texting hotline app provides mental health crisis care for economically deprived youth

Background

Due to rapidly increasing youth suicides in the U.S state of Utah, the legislature funded creation of a 24/7 texting-based smartphone app in Spanish and English targeting Utah's school aged population. Recent research elsewhere (in the Netherlands) suggests cost inhibits help seeking among the economically disadvantaged. We evaluate the relationship between poverty and app usage during the onset of the COVID-19.

Method

Local demographics, social determinants of health and COVID-19 infection rates were modeled using a Bayesian spatio-temporal approach examining usage rates.

Results

When controlling for generally researched suicide crisis covariates, app usage is shown to vary depending on economic status of the population, with the largest relative increases in use among disadvantaged youth.

Discussion

This bilingual Spanish/English, texting (SMS) based, smart phone app crisis hotline proved effective at providing adolescents from certain populations access to mental health care. The groups discussed are in Census Block Groups (CBGs – neighborhoods) with higher poverty, and/or lower population density (rural areas). The usage of the crisis hotline by these populations increased relative to the overall population as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. However, adolescents from areas of higher mobility (our proxy for housing insecure) and those in areas with larger non-White populations had a relative decrease in usage.