Current Research Program

The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Mental Health

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I became immediately concerned about the impact of the public health restrictions on mental health. In 2021 I up-skilled in Data Science and began studying the effects of COVID. In 2022 I received a grant to study the impacts of the lockdown on mental health across Canada.

What we know from the science as of the spring 2023:

• We’ve been impacted. Many people have rebounded but there are still lingering effects, particularly in front-line workers, youth, and in our LGBTQ2S community.

• Many of the effects are seen globally, and within Canada.

What we, in my lab, have discovered using Twitter Sentiment Analysis in Canada:

• Using a stringency index, which is a quantified daily index of the severity of restrictions imposed by governments, we discovered that sentiments reflected in COVID-related tweets were similar across Canada during Wave 1. Happiness went up with the lockdowns and fear, anger, and sadness went down. People likely felt safer amidst the fear of the novel coronavirus. The sentiments in the tweets were also very strong during Wave 1.

• This pattern continued for some provinces well through waves 3, 4, 5, and 6 although generally the sentiments, although the sentiments themselves were blunted.

• However, in some other provinces we see a reversed pattern emerging later in the pandemic. Instead of fear and anger going down with the lockdowns, they went up! This could suggest that people in those provinces were no longer feeling safe by the lockdowns, but rather, were feeling the negative impact of the restrictions.

What we are continuing to explore:

• The effects of lockdowns on police calls across Canada during 2020, 2021, and 2022, specifically with calls related to mental health, suicide and attempted suicide, and overdose.

• The effects of the lockdowns and specific public health restrictions on women’s participation in the workforce.

These dashboard is available from Statistics Canada

Behavioural Data Science - General Interests

Using data to understand human or animal behaviour has been around for a long time. In psychology many moons ago there was a shift away from attempting to understanding human experiences through introspection and reflection toward an emphasis on observable behaviors, giving rise to behaviorism and modern psychology. With that shift came a focus on the scientific methods as a tools for knowledge discovery and also a focus on data.

Today, behavior is being understood in vastly different ways and at scales previously unimaginable through the use of computer technology, big data, and the ubiquitous use of personal devices to collect this data.

The intersection between psychology/behaviour and data science is an existing opportunity to explore humanity. Here are some big ideas that interest me, for which I have applied for big, bold grants:

• Can we applied artificial intelligence to detect and diagnosis for mental health issues using natural language processing, social media data, and a variety of biometrics available on personal devices? The value of this would solve the solution to the accessibility issue wherein many people cannot afford diagnostic services for things like autism-spectrum, learning disabilities, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, depression, anxiety, etc.

• How is social media influence our opinions, beliefs, sentiments, and behaviors and in turn, how do our opinions, beliefs, sentiments, and behaviors show up in social media?

• How can we improve learning and learner engagement through reinforcement strategies, gamification, conversational AI, and social influence?

Individual Differences

I am also quite fascinated by the individual differences that exist are often not captured by traditional scientific methods. I believe there is an intersection among these individual differences, artificial intelligence, and self reflection that requires investigation. I am hoping someone will donate $1M for me to start this program. :)