Professor Zhou Shuo awards Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) from the Health Bureau

We are proud to announce that Professor Zhou Shuo from the Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication has received funding in the latest round of the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) by the Health Bureau.

As an expert in communication and behavioural analytics, Professor Zhou received the grant for her exceptional project "Build Machine Learning Models to Predict Suicidal Thoughts and Examine the Feasibility of Using Just-in-time Adaptive Interventions for Suicide Prevention," in collaboration with Dr Lan Liang (School of Communication), Dr Shao Jing (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), and other local scholars.

Acknowledging the limitations of current suicide prevention methods, Professor Zhou plans to develop machine learning models using linguistic, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural data to predict suicidal thoughts and assess real-time adaptive interventions. The goal is to create a mobile app for data collection and establish a scalable suicide prevention framework.

The main aims of HMRF are to build research capacity, encourage, facilitate and support health and medical research to inform health policies, improve population health, strengthen the health system, enhance healthcare practices, advance standard and quality of care, and promote clinical excellence through evidence-based scientific knowledge in health and medicine.

We would like to once again extend our congratulations to Professor Zhou for her unwavering dedication and invaluable contributions to research and the field of mental health.