Dr David Burns through the feeling great book and feeling good podcast have had a very large positive impact on my mental health for essentially 0 cost on my end. While the feeling good app is still in beta, maybe it’s worth reaching out to him (or other mental health app makers) about trialing the app in a low income country. Running a rct may be cheaper in the developing world. If app based interventions work, I’m sure the app creators would be very pleased and I imagine they may be willing to distribute freely in certain regions in exchange for the good publicity.
Thanks for the recommendation! I came across something similar recently: Action for Happiness, which is recommended by Founders’ Pledge. I think the theory of change is that people can meaningfully improve their wellbeing by applying some evidence-based changes to their lives. Most who start will probably drop out, but those who persevere will likely benefit. Costs could be kept low by relying on centralised resources, voluntary donations and possibly volunteer labour.
Unfortunately my report didn’t explore this avenue for change as I only looked at preventing and mitigating mental illness (+ pain + suicide), but I wish I had done more on simply improving wellbeing.
I would say that although self-help is, on the face of it, basically free, the cost of reaching new people through marketing is likely to be a huge determinant of how cost-effective it is.
You may be interested in this recent meta-analysis on the efficacy of mental health apps. The authors conclude that: “apps have overall small but significant effects on symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety, and that specific features of apps – such as CBT or mood monitoring features and chatbot technology – are associated with larger effect sizes.”
Dr David Burns through the feeling great book and feeling good podcast have had a very large positive impact on my mental health for essentially 0 cost on my end. While the feeling good app is still in beta, maybe it’s worth reaching out to him (or other mental health app makers) about trialing the app in a low income country. Running a rct may be cheaper in the developing world. If app based interventions work, I’m sure the app creators would be very pleased and I imagine they may be willing to distribute freely in certain regions in exchange for the good publicity.
Thanks for the recommendation! I came across something similar recently: Action for Happiness, which is recommended by Founders’ Pledge. I think the theory of change is that people can meaningfully improve their wellbeing by applying some evidence-based changes to their lives. Most who start will probably drop out, but those who persevere will likely benefit. Costs could be kept low by relying on centralised resources, voluntary donations and possibly volunteer labour.
Unfortunately my report didn’t explore this avenue for change as I only looked at preventing and mitigating mental illness (+ pain + suicide), but I wish I had done more on simply improving wellbeing.
I would say that although self-help is, on the face of it, basically free, the cost of reaching new people through marketing is likely to be a huge determinant of how cost-effective it is.
You may be interested in this recent meta-analysis on the efficacy of mental health apps. The authors conclude that: “apps have overall small but significant effects on symptoms of depression and generalized anxiety, and that specific features of apps – such as CBT or mood monitoring features and chatbot technology – are associated with larger effect sizes.”