Case Studies of Mental Problems in South Korea and India: Why Knowing the National Demographics First Helps Choose Better Medical Technical Interventions

To improve Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) in e-health applications means getting maximum advantage at minimum cost to purveyors and consumers. This is a conceptual and empirical paper arguing three kinds of data are important to know beforehand to create informed decisions to maximize beneficial uses of online technology to aid mental health: (1) how do you define the etiology of mental health problems; (2) how do you define who should be helped as a priority, and (3) how do you make decisions technically to fit the former two points? Since serving patients is more important than technical profiteering, these three critical decision points mean primary medical choices of diagnosis and secondary national demographic research should guide a more conditioned tertiary technical use, instead of vice versa that regularly leads to cutting patients to fit pre-determined and misaligned technological investments. Two case studies of this technical vetting procedure are summarized on the mental health demographics of South Korea and India. It should influence the current state of the art for how to reach patients best via Internet-connected technologies for monitoring and treating depression. Policy advice on platform design is better once this vetting procedure is used.