Duke researchers receive $15M federal grant to expand AI model designed
to predict mental illness
[October 09, 2025]
By WILLIAM GIM/The Chronicle
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — A team at Duke University has secured a $15 million
federal grant to expand an artificial intelligence model designed to
predict mental illness in adolescents.
The Duke Predictive Model of Adolescent Mental Health (Duke-PMA),
co-developed by Professor of Psychiatry Jonathan Posner, Assistant
Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Matthew Engelhard and AI
Health Fellow Elliot Hill, is an AI-based tool that assesses factors
related to adolescent mental health.
The model is used to predict who is most likely to develop a mental
illness within a year. It also identifies the key factors driving those
predictions, offering the potential to guide targeted preventive
interventions.
“In the way that psychiatry is currently practiced, it tends to be
reactive, meaning we wait until someone’s developed a psychiatric
illness, and then we institute treatment,” Posner said. “So (the model)
would really be a paradigm change in psychiatry from a reactive to a
proactive approach.”
The model achieved 84% accuracy in identifying adolescents of age 10 to
15 who are at risk for future serious mental health issues and
maintained consistent performance across socioeconomic status, race and
sex. This accuracy was achieved using only questionnaires, instead of
expensive imaging or blood tests, making the model a highly scalable and
accessible assessment tool.
The model maintained high accuracy when limited to factors that can be
directly influenced through clinician intervention, such as sleep
disturbances and family conflict. Its results could offer clinicians
actionable insights to guide prevention and intervention strategies
before illness develops.
“So a patient comes into their clinic, they do this quick assessment,
and then the primary care doctor gets a report saying, this child in
front of me has a 90% chance of developing an illness within a year, and
these are the factors that are driving that prediction,” Posner said.
Securing the $15 million federal grant marks a turning point in the
project’s development. “This is exactly the pathway to get it in (the
clinicians’) hands and actually identify people early and connect them
with services and support that can hopefully bend that trajectory,”
Engelhard said.
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 The next phase of the project will
enroll 2,000 adolescents from rural clinics in North Carolina,
Minnesota and North Dakota.
“We wanted to go to places where the resources for mental health
care are pretty limited across the board,” Posner said. “Having an
automated tool like this, while it would be helpful virtually
anywhere, would be particularly helpful in a rural setting, which
doesn’t have the mental health resources that you’d see in an urban
clinic.”
The team will conduct an observational study, using the Duke-PMA to
assess participants and generate predictions. Families will be
recontacted a year later for detailed psychiatric evaluations to
determine whether the model’s predictions prove accurate.
The use of artificial intelligence in medicine may spark both
excitement and unease, particularly when applied to sensitive areas
like adolescent mental health. For one, to address the risk of false
positives, Hill emphasizes that Duke-PMA is designed as a supportive
tool, not a replacement for clinical judgment.
“We’re very serious about protecting patients’ privacy, both in the
context of the study that we’re doing, as well as more broadly,
going forward,” Engelhard said. “And so this is information that
would be between you and your care providers.”
This approach attempts to balance innovation with caution, enhancing
care while preserving essential human presence during clinical
judgment.
“This type of research would not be possible unless you had people
from lots of different disciplines collaborating together … I think
Duke is unusually well positioned for that type of work,” Posner
said.
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This story was originally published by The Chronicle at Duke
University and distributed through a partnership with The Associated
Press.
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