Dark Brightness

Sin ce the last post I have been travelling, there has been an election in New Zealand (and the USA) and I have been trying to get things sorted out after some time away.

Blogging is lower down the priority list.

Most recent thoughts though:

Most of the data on Mental Health Promotion I can find is of the”Oh this is lovely and we are so nice because we do it”. The other set of data I can find relates to studies. This is less optimistic. A recent meta analysis shows benefits to mental and physical health from exercise and health interventiosn but not psychological interventions  [1]. A second review suggests that the data on MH promotion is too sketchy to produce any reliable costings of benefits [2].

I get irritated when the policy is “do something” when the data indicating that it may make a difference is not there. I would support people doing trials to see if interventions can make a difference — but claiming that we can promote mental health when it looks like efforts to do so could not be effective is at least intellectually dishonest, if not actively harmful

1.  Kuoppala J, Lamminpää A, Husman P. Work health promotion, job well-being, and sickness absences-a systematic review and meta-analysis.J Occup Environ Med. 2008 Nov;50(11):1216-27

2.  Zechmeister I, Kilian R, McDaid D; MHEEN group. Is it worth investing in mental health promotion and prevention of mental illness? A systematic review of the evidence from economic evaluations.BMC Public Health. 2008 Jan 22;8:20.