Depression

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Will the Welfare State Cause the Next Great Depression?

February 29, 2012 in Economics - General | 2 comments

According to Robert Samuelson’s article in the Wilson Quarterly, the answer is yes.

Just as the gold standard amplified and transmitted the effects of the Depression, so the modern welfare state is magnifying the effects of the recession. The United States, Europe, and Japan, together representing about half of the world economy, face similar pressures: aging societies, high government spending, and soaring debt levels. These pressures impose austerity on country after country—just as the gold standard did. The cumulative effect is to make it harder for the world to recover from what started as an ordinary, though severe, recession—just as happened under the gold standard…What has brought the welfare state to grief is not an excess of compassion, but an excess of debt.

Alex Tabarrok would certainly agree.

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Are you depressed?

November 22, 2011 in Medical Studies | No comments

That is the question that that clinicians often have to ask.  Depression certainly operates along a scale and it is often difficult to quantify either i) if a person is depressed or ii) how depressed they are.

One option to assess patient depression is the PHQ-9.  The assessment asks patients nine questions regarding their mental health status.  The patient’s depression level can be quantified on a scale from 0-27 and practitioners can use this information to provide a tentative diagnosis.

The PHQ-9, like many assessment, relies on patient self-reports which depend on the communication skills of the patient.  Further, depression can be transitive in some cases; thus additional PHQ-9 questionnaires will need to be conducted over time.  Still the PHQ-9 can be a useful tool for physicians assessing patient depression.

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Foreclosures: Bad for your health

August 1, 2010 in Public Health | No comments

According to a recent study by Pollack and Lynch (2009), having your house foreclosed is bad for your health.  The Penn Gazette summarizes the paper’s findings as follows:

“[the authors]  presented sobering findings culled from a survey of 250 Philadelphians who had sought credit counseling for home mortgage foreclosure.  More than one-third of the study participants met screening criteria for major depression, and after adjusting for demographic and financial factors, people undergoing foreclosure had significantly higher rates of hypertension and heart disease than others in the community.”

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