Assessing Trauma Response of First Responders Using Physiological Biomarkers

In the U.S. alone, over 20% of adults experienced a mental illness in 2019; a problem that has only worsened with the current pandemic. Mental health conditions, which include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorder, are even more common among first responders. While first responders undergo extensive training, their demanding jobs often expose them to potentially traumatic events that can lead to short- and long-term mental health problems. This project will develop a continuous multi-modal mental health sensing and analysis framework able to detect subtle changes in psychological health using physiological sensor streams from wearable devices, specifically focusing on stress responses immediately after exposure to trauma, i.e., acute stress disorder (ASD) and acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This approach will be able to detect and predict the occurrence of ASD and PTSD and provide an early alert mechanism that notifies first responder to seek help proactively.