Name
ATIPAN: From Telehealth to Digital Mental Health in Indigenous Communities
Time
2:20 PM - 2:30 PM (EST)
Description

The ATIPAN Project was originally a social protection program that facilitated access to healthcare services for remote underserved Indigenous and rural low-income communities in Western Visayas (Region 6, Philippines) during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been proposed as a community-based digital health strategy towards the implementation of universal healthcare (UHC) in the Philippines and mentioned as one of “8 Great Ideas Changing Lives Worldwide” by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) last year. Extensive social preparation and capacity building occurred rapidly, and innovations by the communities further enhanced the program. The community-facilitated telehealth service was widely accepted and delivered data on the health of populations unreached by the country’s public healthcare system. Consequently, the mental health issues of marginalized ethnic and disadvantaged Filipinos surfaced which is now being addressed with telepsychiatry and the development of AI to assist in diagnosing depression/anxiety from patients’ speech. The program has also been developing surveillance to signal infectious disease epidemics using telehealth data and modeling the mental health repercussion of such in these vulnerable populations. Finally, interventions focused on community mental well-being maybe more appropriate to Indigenous people and are being pursued, including continuity of care (CoC) via health mapping, while trying to identify entry points for digital (mental) health using this community-centric perspective.

Romulo de Castro
Location Name
Pier-2 Room