4 ms·

> Overall, the researchers claim, eliminating depression and anxiety would reduce misery by 20%, whereas eliminating poverty would reduce it by just 5%. Why ar

by pdkl95 9y ago

> Overall, the researchers claim, eliminating depression and anxiety would reduce misery by 20%, whereas eliminating poverty would reduce it by just 5%. Why are these framed as independent factors? For many people the lack of financial stability is a primary source of depression and anxiety. When you truly don't know how your are going to afford next week's food/medication/rent, survival instinct kick in causing anxiety and huge mental burden that can make it difficult to focus on anything else. One of the easier ways to fix a large amount of depression and anxiety is financial stability. > If your neighbor becomes richer, you feel poorer. While, I completely support increased funding to mental health services for everyone, as someone trying to figure out how to pay for a new $100/month insulin prescription with a laughably tiny disability check and a medicare "donut hole", this is pretty offensive. Feeling bad because you can't keep up with the consumerism rat race isn't "misery".

x3n0ph3n3 9y ago
> Why are these framed as independent factors? Because people have lived in poverty for thousands of years without debilitating depression and anxiety.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  One can live in poverty without living in misery.
Riseed 9y ago
> as someone trying to figure out how to pay for a new $100/month insulin prescription Last weekend, another internet stranger recommended prescriptionhope.com, which charges $50/mo/script. [0] > Why are these framed as independent factors? For many people the lack of financial stability is a primary source of depression and anxiety. Not only that: - poverty "can change your genes and increase your chances of depression" [1] - relieving poverty (by $73/mo) "significantly improves mental health" [2] - "anxiety disorders in poor moms likely to result from poverty, not mental illness" [3] Of course, not everyone agrees. Some researchers found that improving mental health led to improved financial situations (and not the other way around.) [4] Regardless of which has a larger causal effect on the other, studies continue to show the two are certainly linked, and not independent factors. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/ROYXD https://imgur.com/gallery/ROYXD [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/depression-anxiety-genes-epigenetic-changes-dna-poverty-a7047201.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/depression-anxiet... [2] blog/news writeup: https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/relieving-poverty-significantly-improves-mental-health/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/relieving-poverty-signi... abstract: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-015-9950-9 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-015-9950-9 [3] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120720083312.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120720083312.h... [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/poverty-and-mental-health-can-the-2-way-connection-be-broken/247275/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/poverty-a...
burntrelish1273 9y ago
Yes and no. Purpose, structure, exercise/activity, nutrition, sleep, support and not constantly living in uncertainty, stress, misery and/or isolation help. (In my case, treatment-resistant depression is the default setting irrespective of circumstances, Maslow's hierarchy items or socioeconomic status.) LA's skidrow and Cook County jail's mental healthcare system are quintessential consequences of deinstitutionalization (d20n). Institutionalization, as it existed prior to 1973, was certianly slavery illegal under the 13th amendment (Souder v. Brennan) and not about the panacea of meds or uncaring Reagan. If institutions had simply been funded properly instead of being capriciously abolished, the costs vs. externalities to patients and society would've been far less (ie self-medication, police costs, hospital costs, etc.) Simply, d20n diffused the responsibilities and costs for necessary social services everywhere else, but they didn't and won't magically disappear because people are still people. The moral thing to do is rebuild sufficient and various levels of mental care facilities with proper funding such that patients get services they may not know they need, instead of dying slowly and miserably at a bus station. Another big failure of d20n was the canyons which patients fell into when they were sent to underfunded, poor execution of Kennedy's legacy for Community Mental Health Centers, which left many homeless and in limbo. Instead of a spotty patchwork of services, US counties must be required to coordinate services and provide any missing that comprehensively address: drug treatment, social rehabilitation, housing, work, training/education, health/dental/vision/mental health and social work without the patchwork of duct-tape, missing services and callous neglect that exists today. Homeless people are people.

by pdkl95 9y ago

x3n0ph3n3 9y ago

> Why are these framed as independent factors? Because people have lived in poverty for thousands of years without debilitating depression and anxiety.

Raphmedia 9y ago
One can live in poverty without living in misery.

Riseed 9y ago

> as someone trying to figure out how to pay for a new $100/month insulin prescription Last weekend, another internet stranger recommended prescriptionhope.com, which charges $50/mo/script. [0] > Why are these framed as independent factors? For many people the lack of financial stability is a primary source of depression and anxiety. Not only that: - poverty "can change your genes and increase your chances of depression" [1] - relieving poverty (by $73/mo) "significantly improves mental health" [2] - "anxiety disorders in poor moms likely to result from poverty, not mental illness" [3] Of course, not everyone agrees. Some researchers found that improving mental health led to improved financial situations (and not the other way around.) [4] Regardless of which has a larger causal effect on the other, studies continue to show the two are certainly linked, and not independent factors. [0] https://imgur.com/gallery/ROYXD https://imgur.com/gallery/ROYXD [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/depression-anxiety-genes-epigenetic-changes-dna-poverty-a7047201.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/depression-anxiet... [2] blog/news writeup: https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/relieving-poverty-significantly-improves-mental-health/ https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/11/relieving-poverty-signi... abstract: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-015-9950-9 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10597-015-9950-9 [3] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120720083312.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120720083312.h... [4] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/poverty-and-mental-health-can-the-2-way-connection-be-broken/247275/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/poverty-a...

burntrelish1273 9y ago

Yes and no. Purpose, structure, exercise/activity, nutrition, sleep, support and not constantly living in uncertainty, stress, misery and/or isolation help. (In my case, treatment-resistant depression is the default setting irrespective of circumstances, Maslow's hierarchy items or socioeconomic status.) LA's skidrow and Cook County jail's mental healthcare system are quintessential consequences of deinstitutionalization (d20n). Institutionalization, as it existed prior to 1973, was certianly slavery illegal under the 13th amendment (Souder v. Brennan) and not about the panacea of meds or uncaring Reagan. If institutions had simply been funded properly instead of being capriciously abolished, the costs vs. externalities to patients and society would've been far less (ie self-medication, police costs, hospital costs, etc.) Simply, d20n diffused the responsibilities and costs for necessary social services everywhere else, but they didn't and won't magically disappear because people are still people. The moral thing to do is rebuild sufficient and various levels of mental care facilities with proper funding such that patients get services they may not know they need, instead of dying slowly and miserably at a bus station. Another big failure of d20n was the canyons which patients fell into when they were sent to underfunded, poor execution of Kennedy's legacy for Community Mental Health Centers, which left many homeless and in limbo. Instead of a spotty patchwork of services, US counties must be required to coordinate services and provide any missing that comprehensively address: drug treatment, social rehabilitation, housing, work, training/education, health/dental/vision/mental health and social work without the patchwork of duct-tape, missing services and callous neglect that exists today. Homeless people are people.