Developing a methodology for using machine learning techniques to follow online mental health and well-being discourse among young people and adolescents to inform programming

Our nine-month project builds upon pre-existing work carried out by UNICEF in Ukraine in 2021-22 to use machine learning techniques to follow online mental health and well-being discourse among young people and adolescents. Our aim in this project is to take a more participatory approach with adolescents and young people.

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Building Heights Phase 2 - Calculating Line-Of-Sight Between a School Location and Radio Antennae Using Deep Learning Models on Satellite Data

Phase 2 of… Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. The goal of the project is to understand whether a machine learning model can inform, in part, the need, cost and difficulty of connecting such schools to the internet via radio links.

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Building Heights Phase 1 - Calculating Line-Of-Sight Feasibility Between a School Location and Radio Antennae Using Deep Learning Models on Satellite Data.

Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. The goal of the project is to understand whether a machine learning model can inform, in part, the need, cost and difficulty of connecting such schools to the internet via radio links.

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Mapping gender related barriers for immunisation using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Immunisation is widely perceived as gender-neutral, yet in many countries, there are distinct gender barriers at both household and community levels. This project aims to strengthen the availability of timely and granular data to identify gender-related barriers to immunisation better and inform targeted pro-equity strategies.

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Understanding sports activity in Scotland through data: Mapping what the system looks like for young people, and how Covid-19 impacts access to sport.

COVID-19 has impacted many aspects of children’s lives across Scotland and had detrimental effects on their health and well-being. Recreational sport has long been understood as a crucial mechanism for improved health and well-being and positively impacting social cohesion, education, and the economy.

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Conversational AI to rebut COVID-19 rumours, myths, and misinformation

As the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, an epidemic of misinformation has been circulating through different communication channels and communities. The objectives of our project are to increase UNICEF’s ability to identify and track rumours and myths around COVID-19 through the U-Report Chatbot, and to develop more sophisticated tools for responding to and debunking rumours.

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The Child Climate Risk Index (CCRI)

All countries are facing the challenges of climate change and a degrading natural environment. Some countries, and children within those countries, are more at risk of the impacts of climate change than others. Moreover, some countries have in place mechanisms that make them more resilient and ready to address the negative effects of climate change.

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Prevention of adolescent mental health conditions: is technology a possible source for good?

Approximately half of all poor mental health conditions manifest by early adolescence, and available evidence suggests that around 10 to 20 percent of children and adolescents experience one of these conditions. However, serious data gaps remain around the magnitude of the problem, and what countries can do about it.

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Population Estimation

Estimates of population density are a valuable data source for policymakers, for example, in the context of developing a vaccination programme. However, census data is not collected frequently enough to be sufficient for such applications. This means that many census based population estimates do not account for rapid population change and may also lack precision in rural areas.


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In Isolation Instead of in School (INISS): young people’s experiences of COVID-19 and effects on mental health and education

This research will provide vital national data directly from pupils, to assess impacts on mental health and education. It will contextualise pupils’ experience within data on COVID-19 prevalence, health patterns and trends and against educational achievement outcomes data, to inform interventions and policy making.

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Addressing socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 on children in Scotland: A review of capability and available data assets

The aim of this project is to conduct a desk-based exercise that maps the sources of information (data) - and details about those sources - that are seen to relate to understanding more about the socioeconomic impacts of COVID19 for and on children, and by extension how to tackle them.

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