Latest / StartUp Health NOW Podcast / Helen Egger, MD, Director, Child Study Center, NYU Langone Health

Transcript

Helen Egger, MD, Director, Child Study Center, NYU Langone Health · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  [gentle music] We are here with Dr. Helen Egger. Yeah. Nice to be with you. Hello. How are you? Thank you. I'm doing great. So you are the- This day... department chair- Yes...
• 0:11
  of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department. Yep. Uh, and also the director of the Child Study Center. Yep. Yep. So I thought we'd start by learning about you- Yeah, thank you... and your background- Uh-huh...
• 0:23
  and how you got involved in what you do. Yeah. Um, tell us about you. Yeah. So I'm a child psychiatrist, and my area of focus is actually early childhood mental health, so I focus on kids zero to six years old.
• 0:38
  Um, but in my role as chair, I lead a large department. Mm-hmm.
• 0:42
  We have over 100 faculty members, and we care for children zero to 18 years old for, you know, the full range of mental health challenges that children have- Hmm...
• 0:52
  from depression to anxiety to, um, ADHD, and we do it both in outpatient settings, but also, uh, children who are hospitalized- Hmm...
• 1:02
  either on psychiatric services or, uh, in hospitals for medical problems, we help to take care of their mental health needs.
• 1:09
  It seems like it's such a, an extraordinary time in the world really for mental health issues in general- Yeah... I think for all ages, but also for children. Um- Yeah... uh, are you... Is that, is that true?
• 1:22
  Is, is now different than historically- Yeah. So I think it's-... or are we just noticing it? I think we're noticing it more. I mean, the key thing with mental health is, one, it's...
• 1:32
  mental health problems are very common, so, um, about one in nine children- Hmm... and this includes young children as well as older children, have a mental health disorder that impacts their functioning in some way.
• 1:46
  Hmm. But because of the way our health system is set up, as well as the stigma about, um, mental health issues, very few children get the help they need. Hmm.
• 1:57
  So one s- you know, statistic that really drives a lot of my work, which is in our country, 75% of children who have an impairing mental health disorder never get any meni- mental health care at all. Wow. Wow.
• 2:12
  So the, one of the things for me as a leader of an academic department, and we're serving many, many children every day, every year, is also knowing that we are not seeing the majority of children, and we are not meeting the needs- Hmm...
• 2:29
  of the majority of children. And so that's the other part of my background is I'm an epidemiologist. Hmm.
• 2:35
  So my research is focused not on kids who come into a clinic, but rather understanding in the population how common are these problems- Mm-hmm... what do they look like, what, how do they develop over a child's lifetime?
• 2:50
  And that's really important because it helps us to realize where there's unmet need- Mm-hmm... um, which I think is, is really critical.
• 2:57
  So as we're understanding these, these big challenges and we're understanding this unmet need- Yeah... where's the opportunity for innovation? Yeah.
• 3:07
  What role does innovation play, technology, innovation, perhaps digital innovation- Yeah... to really try to help solve some of these- Yeah... big challenges?
• 3:16
  One of the things that's really interesting right now about digital and how it impacts our lives is we're aware of a lot of the negative impacts and our concerns for our children and their screen time, et cetera. Mm-hmm.
• 3:28
  And that is all very, very true.
• 3:30
  On the flip side, I really believe that, um, digital technology and data science holds the key for us to really create transformative change in how and when and where we identify problems that children are having and try to help, um, kids get treatment, um, and support.
• 3:52
  One of the key things there is a model that just provides mental health care in a clinic setting- Mm-hmm... is really problematic, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 4:00
  Um, either people don't have insurance, or they don't have transportation. So I'm very focused on how do we get evidence-based knowledge about children's mental health to parents and to children in their homes- Mm-hmm...
• 4:14
  in their schools, in the communities where they live- Mm-hmm... so that they can be informed and have the knowledge to either advocate for the, uh, healthcare that they need or to seek it out. Hmm.
• 4:26
  Um, so we're focusing on that in, in a number of ways in our department. Yeah. I wanna tell you about the WonderLab- I wanna, I wanna hear about that... and about our tools- Yeah, tell us about the WonderLab...
• 4:34
  and then about, uh, telepsychiatry. Okay. So it's sort of connected. We have new ways to deliver care and new ways to reach parents. So- So what is the WonderLab? Yeah. So the WonderLab, um, is...
• 4:46
  I founded the WonderLab, and what it is, it's a place where we bring together experts in child mental health with people who do, uh, digital technology, so developers, designers, data scientists, and we all come together, uh- Hmm...
• 5:01
  researchers, we have a bioethicist, and we all come together to try to solve problems in, uh, facing children who have- Hmm... mental health problems.
• 5:11
  And the thing we're working on is ve- is derived from my own work, which is in early childhood mental health, and that is how do we get recognition that very young children, like older children, experience and suffer and are impaired by mental health problems?
• 5:28
  Hmm. How do we get that information to parents? And number two, how do we solve the problem of, uh, getting information really from the child's behavior?
• 5:40
  Right now, if you observeChildren's behavior, uh, in a valid way, it involves training someone in some protocol. It takes a lot of time. Mm. It's very expensive, so it doesn't happen.
• 5:51
  So I started this work that we're doing in the Wonder Lab by working with a team of engineers- Mm... to say, "How can we develop a scalable way to automatically code children's behaviors and emotions?"
• 6:05
  So 'cause that's really the only way we're gonna create something- Right... that will, that will grow. Mm-hmm. So what we did, our first study, uh, which paper came out last week in, uh, Nature Digital Medicine- Oh...
• 6:16
  is for- We'll put a link to that. Yeah Yeah. Is an app called Autism and Beyond, and this is when I was at Duke University, where I was before I came to NYU.
• 6:24
  And the paradigm that we used is we created a study that was fully in the smartphone. So parents could enroll in the study by downloading the app- Mm... filling out a consent form, and then doing different activities.
• 6:37
  But the core that was innovative in this study is that children would sit on the parent's lap, these are kids one to six years old, and parent would hold up the phone, and the child watched four 30-second videos. Mm-hmm.
• 6:52
  Bubbles, a bunny. We turned the phone into a camera, so the- Mm-hmm... a mirror, so the child was looking at him or herself. Mm-hmm.
• 7:00
  While the child watched these movies, we used the front-facing camera on the phone to record a video of them- Mm... watching, uh, the phone.
• 7:10
  Then we uploaded those videos, and then we used computer vision algorithms to automatically quantify the child's emotions and the child's attention. We create tools for what we call the super computer in your pocket.
• 7:25
  So- Right... uh- 'Cause everybody has one... everyone has one, and s- because we're building tools that are feasible, affordable, and globally scalable. Mm-hmm.
• 7:34
  That that, and so we're really making decisions to make tools that can reach as many families, um, and as many children as possible. So are there areas of innovation that you wished more,
• 7:50
  uh, entrepreneurs, innovators were focusing on today? Yeah. Well, I think- Or over the next few years? Yeah.
• 7:57
  I think what we're doing in the Wonder Lab by bringing together people from all these different disciplines- Mm... to make apps together, right? Mm. We're not off in our separate corners. Right.
• 8:08
  I'm a child psychiatrist, but I can tell you about agile design. Right. My developer can tell you about, uh, different behaviors and emotions in kids.
• 8:19
  We're all there doing it together, and we're working so closely with children and families that that's really where I think in healthcare and in digital health we are gonna move the needle forward- Mm-hmm...
• 8:32
  by creating tools that are not only reliable and valid, but are beautiful, and they're fun, and they're, um, they become essential. So where can people go to learn more about the- Yeah...
• 8:45
  Wonder Lab and the amazing work that you're, you're doing? Wonderful. Well, certainly, um, if you go to the NYU, uh, Langone website- Yeah...
• 8:53
  for the Department of, uh, Child Psychiatry, there's information there, and we can give you the links for that. Yeah. I think for parents who are watching and might be interested in being users and testers- Mm-hmm...
• 9:05
  um, we're very interested in, in people who wanna join us in, uh, trying things out. Our first app is on picky eating. Mm. Second app will be on temper tantrums, third app on anxiety, and the fourth on sleep.
• 9:17
  Every parent wants advice and, and support. So you give, it's very, you know, precise for your child and your issue, but it's very- Mm... important that we're really addressing the needs of all parents- Mm-hmm...
• 9:31
  not just parents whose kids are having challenges. Right. What's your, your dream for the future?
• 9:37
  My dream for the future, uh, number one is that every parent and every child has access to the best knowledge about child development and child mental health, and then access to the kind of support and services to maximize that child's development, enable the child to thrive.
• 9:58
  Mm.
• 9:58
  And then from a sort of scientific and medical point of view, that we are successful with the tools we're building, and that we build the largest global database on young children's behavior and emotion, and discover new things- Mm-hmm...
• 10:13
  and, and learn things that we don't know, um, that can really transform the mental health of kids and families. Wonderful. Well, thank you for the work- Thank you... that you and everyone at the Wonder Lab's doing.
• 10:24
  Wonderful. Uh, it's amazing. And thank you for the opportunity. We're, as you can tell, very excited about the work we're doing. Yeah. So- It's good... we appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you.