If malaria and other easily preventable/treatable debilitating physical issues were common among EAs, I’d guess that should be a much higher priority to address than poor mental health among EAs.
If imposter syndrome and other easily preventable/treatable debilitating mental issues were common among EAs, I’d guess that should be a much higher priority to address than poor “physical” health among EAs.
Isn’t it in the end about what’s more cost-effective? I can interpret you as pointing to “if ~depression was more cost-effective to address than ~smallpox, it would have been addressed first in the developed nations,” this might be a good heuristic but a well-thought cost-effectiveness estimate is more convincing to me. Seems like criticizing MichaelPlant’s cost-effectiveness estimates could have been more productive here. (TBC: I myself haven’t engaged with HLI’s work/methal health charities much).
And mental health being comparatively cost-effective doesn’t sound ridiculous to me. StrongMinds attracted some donations from EAs in the past including GiveWell staff.
(I sorta feel that this comment and 23 upvotes / 7 votes support OP’s observation that people seem to be dismissive about mental health as global health and development intervention.)
Sorry, I should have been more mindful of how the brevity of my comment might come off. I didn’t mean to suggest the question doesn’t come down to what’s most cost-effective, which I agree it does. I was trying to point to the explanation for my differing attitudes to the priority of mental health when thinking the cause area of making the ea community more effective vs. the cause area of present people’s wellbeing more generally, which I’d guess is also the primary explanation for other people’s differing attitudes, which is: debilitating and easily treatable physical illnesses are not that common among EAs, which is why they aren’t a high priority for helping the EA community be more effective.
Thanks for clarifying! I think our misunderstanding comes from different framings: EA meta/infrastructure v. global health; within global health, MH v. disease/poverty alleviation. I agree with you and calebp on the former.
If malaria and other easily preventable/treatable debilitating physical issues were common among EAs, I’d guess that should be a much higher priority to address than poor mental health among EAs.
That’s fairly dismissive. You could have written:
Isn’t it in the end about what’s more cost-effective? I can interpret you as pointing to “if ~depression was more cost-effective to address than ~smallpox, it would have been addressed first in the developed nations,” this might be a good heuristic but a well-thought cost-effectiveness estimate is more convincing to me. Seems like criticizing MichaelPlant’s cost-effectiveness estimates could have been more productive here. (TBC: I myself haven’t engaged with HLI’s work/methal health charities much).
And mental health being comparatively cost-effective doesn’t sound ridiculous to me. StrongMinds attracted some donations from EAs in the past including GiveWell staff.
(I sorta feel that this comment and 23 upvotes / 7 votes support OP’s observation that people seem to be dismissive about mental health as global health and development intervention.)
Sorry, I should have been more mindful of how the brevity of my comment might come off. I didn’t mean to suggest the question doesn’t come down to what’s most cost-effective, which I agree it does. I was trying to point to the explanation for my differing attitudes to the priority of mental health when thinking the cause area of making the ea community more effective vs. the cause area of present people’s wellbeing more generally, which I’d guess is also the primary explanation for other people’s differing attitudes, which is: debilitating and easily treatable physical illnesses are not that common among EAs, which is why they aren’t a high priority for helping the EA community be more effective.
Thanks for clarifying! I think our misunderstanding comes from different framings: EA meta/infrastructure v. global health; within global health, MH v. disease/poverty alleviation. I agree with you and calebp on the former.