In 2022 and 2023, my team partnered with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to solve a big problem. Finding help for mental health, substance use, or alcohol-related issues is often confusing, especially on government websites.
Solving a critical need #
In 2022, 988 – the new three digit number for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – was launched in the United States. SAMHSA, being coordinator of this new critical resource became a top ranked resource for google searches for common questions such as:
- How do I support my loved ones?
- How do I navigate my insurance in my own state?
- How do I find a therapist that meets my needs?
Unfortunately, like many government websites, SAMHSA’s content was tailored to an academic, informed or expert audience. This made it challenging for everyday Americans to find the answers to the questions that keep them up at night.
Through our initial user research we found that while people trusted SAMHSA if they couldn’t find the answers from the government agency that was designed to help them … they could leave feeling despair. This left the possibility for worse health outcomes for these individuals.
We set out to change that.
Co-creating with community across the country #
We designed our usability research to hit different audiences across the country. We conducted over nine rounds of iterative research using a variety of methods, including card sorting at mental health fairs in rural Minnesota, remote usability sessions with people with disabilities from Alaska, conversations with individuals recently involved in the justice system in Los Angeles.
Low fidelity prototypes and photos of user research.
Over the course of these rounds of research we started with low-fidelity prototypes and card-sorting and moved into building more robust content testing on Findsupport.gov (English) and EncuentraApoyo.gov (Spanish)
This resulted in three types of content:
- Stories of individuals navigating their journey to recovery
- Plain language education, that mirrored content queries from search engines
- An insurance navigator, that would provide tailored resources based on what insurance a user had and where they lived.
We designed in this way to cross link. We saw that users had different mental models. Some would see stories and find similarities in their own journeys. Others knew exactly what they needed and were hung up on the details of navigating Medicaid in their state.
Launching with The White House #
The need for our project was highlighted in President Biden’s 2022 and 2023 State of the Union Address and throughout our project we coordinated with high level officials including the White House’s Domestic Policy Council on Mental Health and the Secretary Xavier Becerra’s Office in the Department of Health and Human Services. Our coordination led to a robust public Health Campaign from both The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration.
This resulted in, over the first four months:
- 111,000 interactions, with over a third of users continuing beyond the landing page.
- 15,000 engagements with the crisis response feature
- User research that led to another project solving an issue with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
- A clear, high-profile win for a new team to earn more work across our agency.
What about AI? #
Our plain language content became foundational to how critical resources are represented in generative AI tools. By collaborating with Google and publishing Findsupport.gov, we ensured that trustworthy content became visible in both search and large language models -- helping people find credible answers even when they don’t land on our site directly.
Chat GPT serving up Findsupport.gov content when asked about state resources.
Google AI LAbs serving up Findsupport.gov content when asked about state resources.
Presentations of this work #
I've presented and shared stories of this work and how to approach both public health and technology at multiple conferences, including:
You can find more news across across the internet #
- I supported more work related to Findsupport.gov at CMS. Additional stats are shared on CMS.gov
- I supervised career fellows on this project. They shared their work on their website.
- The White House shared this work as a collection of actions for Mental Health Awareness month. You can find the press release on the White House Archives.
- The White House Archives Tweet
- President Biden's Archived Tweet