Hi Sean, thanks for doing this, StrongMinds sounds very cool! I have two questions:
How does group therapy compare to 1:1 on treatment effectiveness? I understand group therapy is more cost-effective in aggregate but am interested to know what the average effect of moving from 1:1 therapy to group therapy is on patient outcomes.
I live in Uganda and buy SSRIs without a prescription for around 600-800 Ush (15-20c) per tablet. Based on purely anecdotal evidence they seem pretty underutilised here. Obviously not all SSRIs work for all people and there are side effects, so distributing SSRIs isn’t directly comparable to the StongMinds model, but I’d be interested to hear whether you consider distribution of SSRIs to people who meet the clinical definition for depression to be cost effective?
Hi Nick – this is a great post, I also live in Uganda and am a big bean-soaking advocate! So great to hear someone else is fighting the good fight! I have not looked at your calculation but agree that the indoor air pollution reduction benefits could be significant. I do think you are overestimating how easy it is to successfully implement behaviour change interventions though, especially inside the home with gendered decision-making norms. Super happy to see this on the forum :)