Pretty much this. I don’t think discussions on improving mental health in the EA community are motivated by improving wellbeing, but instead by allowing us to be as effective as a community as possible. Poor mental health is a huge drain on productivity.
If the focus on EA community mental health was based on direct wellbeing benefits I would be quite shocked. We’re a fairly small community and it’s likely to be far more cost-effective to improve the mental health of people living in lower income countries (as HLI’s StrongMinds recommendation suggests).
Has anyone done the analysis to determine the most cost-effective ways to increase the productivity of the EA community? It’s not obvious to me that focussing on mental health would be the best option. If that is the case, I feel confused about the rationale for prioritising the mental health of EAs over other productivity interventions.
I don’t know for sure that we have prioritised mental health over other productivity interventions, although we may have. Effective Altruism Coaching doesn’t have a sole mental health focus (also see here for 2020 annual review) but I think that is just one person doing the coaching so may not be representative of wider productivity work in EA.
It’s worth noting that it’s plausible that mental health may be proportionally more of a problem within EA than outside, as EAs may worry more about the state of the world and if they’re having impact etc. - which may in turn require novel resources/approaches to treating mental health problems that aren’t necessarily widely available elsewhere.
Other things like how best to work productively may be well covered by existing resources and so may not need EA-specific materials.
Pretty much this. I don’t think discussions on improving mental health in the EA community are motivated by improving wellbeing, but instead by allowing us to be as effective as a community as possible. Poor mental health is a huge drain on productivity.
If the focus on EA community mental health was based on direct wellbeing benefits I would be quite shocked. We’re a fairly small community and it’s likely to be far more cost-effective to improve the mental health of people living in lower income countries (as HLI’s StrongMinds recommendation suggests).
Has anyone done the analysis to determine the most cost-effective ways to increase the productivity of the EA community? It’s not obvious to me that focussing on mental health would be the best option. If that is the case, I feel confused about the rationale for prioritising the mental health of EAs over other productivity interventions.
I don’t know for sure that we have prioritised mental health over other productivity interventions, although we may have. Effective Altruism Coaching doesn’t have a sole mental health focus (also see here for 2020 annual review) but I think that is just one person doing the coaching so may not be representative of wider productivity work in EA.
It’s worth noting that it’s plausible that mental health may be proportionally more of a problem within EA than outside, as EAs may worry more about the state of the world and if they’re having impact etc. - which may in turn require novel resources/approaches to treating mental health problems that aren’t necessarily widely available elsewhere.
Other things like how best to work productively may be well covered by existing resources and so may not need EA-specific materials.