The Scalable Transdiagnostic Assessment of Mental Health (STREAM)

STREAM is a collaborative project led by a team of researchers from UK, USA, Malawi, and India and funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).

This project is a cross-sectional and multi-method study aimed at developing and testing a new mobile platform for early identification of children at risk of developmental delays. A key obstacle in detecting mental health problems in young children in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs) is the lack of scalable and standardized tools. Commonly used tools are proprietary, time-intensive, expensive, and require highly skilled professionals to administer.

This ‘detection gap’ poses the biggest challenge to developing and implementing effective interventions in early childhood. To overcome this gap, the STREAM study has developed a scalable mobile app to assess key neurocognitive domains in 0- to 6-year-old children in two diverse low-resource settings (Malawi and India).

We will collect data on child development using the STREAM app from 4000 infants, 3700 of which will be sampled from the population and 300 from centers for children with disabilities.

We will also collect additional data on parent-child interactions, general demographics, anthropometry, and parental report on risk factors known to impact neurodevelopment. In addition, a subsample of children will undergo clinical evaluations and EEG assessment. By the end of 5 years, this project will provide evidence of the clinical utility of the STREAM tool in the assessment of neurodevelopmental domains at a population level in community settings.

 

 

Psychologist performing a clinical evaluation with a 5-year-old child and a Community Health Worker assessing child development using the STREAM app