���Correction: It looks as if I erred when I wrote that Boyce and Wood paid to have their article "Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy" published in the online journal "Health Economics, Policy and Law".
Searching again through the reams of small print on the Cambridge Journals website, as far as I can make out the authors only pay to have their article freely available, i.e., without charge. Since it costs $30/£20 to read their article, presumably Boyce and Wood didn't make any payment to Cambridge Journals. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org ------------------------------------------ Re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News Allen Esterson Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:51:54 -0800 Re the Boyce & Wood article "Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy" ("Health Economics, Policy and Law", November 2009): http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m I've now obtained the article. It turns out to be considerably worse than even I anticipated! To me it reads like an undergraduate's essay that would be returned by the author's professor with red markings all over it. To take just one of a dozen or so criticisms I could make, there is no evidence that they undertook any critical examination of the numerous articles and studies they cite. I'll leave it at that. Of equal importance is the way that the article has been uncritically trumpeted on numerous medical and mental health websites. And it is evident that psychotherapists are going to jump at the opportunity to boost their profession: "Psychotherapist and broadcaster Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says "The Beatles sang "money can't buy you love" but perhaps they should have penned a verse about investing in professional therapy instead. “ 'We already knew that receiving extra income beyond about £35,000 a year tended not to improve happiness levels. Clearly if you suffer from clinical depression no amount of money could cheer you up. But this research takes us further, suggesting that what really matters in life are our human connections, being able to access and use our emotions and getting personal recognition rather than compensation or bonus cheques.'” http://tinyurl.com/ygkd86s How has all this been achieved by someone who has not yet obtained his doctorate? Well, to start with, Cambridge Publications charge for articles to be published in their online journals. They also tell prospective authors: "Our constant aim is to publish papers with maximum speed, accuracy and efficiency…" Given the monies obtained from authors, and even more to the point, the $30/£20 they charged to download *every* article in their online journals, it would hardly be surprising if their peer review standards were compromised. Boyce tells us more in an online interview for a U.S. group "Thetic": http://tinyurl.com/yjz3c34 On being asked how did this end up getting out into the media, he replied: "Well, I put pressure on myself basically, I mean to me, I mean this is a really important idea, it's probably one of the most important chapters of my thesis in terms of its ideas and actually, you know, this is a way that, you know you can really have a real impact. So since we started writing this one it has always been in the back of my mind that we eventually want to get this out to the media, so it's a case of getting the Press Release out, making sure the Press Release was just right, and sending that out to as many people as possible, and it seems to have done quite well, so people have been contacting me…" So you pay an online journal to get a quick publication, within a system that must surely compromise academic standards, and then get out Press Releases to as many people as possible. Many of them (in fact every one I've seen), of course, simply post the results of the "study" as if the conclusions were proven. More from Boyce in his interview: "We're basically trying to highlight how ineffective money is in increasing well-being. So we're not necessarily saying psychological therapy is really great, which it is, but we're just trying to highlight that money is relatively ineffective…" "Just to kind of get things clear. We didn't actually conduct any analysis in and of itself, but what we're actually doing is kind of bringing together very disjoint pieces of research… economists are quite into evaluating effects of income on well-being, we took from their studies and we're basically trying to join that up with various psychological research, various research within law, and also medical research, we're kind of bringing that all together. I'm specifically quite unique because of my kind of very cross-disciplinary approach that enables me to kind of bring all this research together. I have not actually conducted any new analysis, but we're just drawing it all together." When asked about his claim made in the article that mental health is deteriorating worldwide, his response was: "In 1999 unipolar depression was estimated to be the fifth most burdensome disease worldwide, and the estimate is that by 2020 that's expected to be the secondmost." This is the only 'evidence' provided in the article for the claim made therein that "Mental health is deteriorating across the world", with a reference to the JAMA article from which this factoid was obtained. To be fair to Boyce and Wood, late among the flurry of assertions and citations they do write: "Our argument is not without its limitations." Too true! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
