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Posted on 12/10/2010 | 0 Comments

Recent newspaper articles and electronic media stories have drawn attention to the relationship between going to university or college and mental health problems and mental disorders. In both the USA http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-college-20100812,0,3226328. and Canada http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/08/12/mental-illness-college.html this has been headline news.
 
It is really difficult to tell if the rates of mental health problems are going up or not but it is true that between the early 1990’s and early 2000’s, suicide rates have fallen. This has been closely associated with better identification and treatment of young people with mental disorders.
 
Certainly there is a clear need for universities, colleges and other institutions of higher learning to actively promote mental health literacy and provide contextualized information known to enhance knowledge and help seeking behavior for their students. Across Canada, over 30 institutions of higher learning have done so – using the “Transitions” program developed by our group. 
 
What is confusing to me is why so many have chosen not to do so, or have tried to reinvent the wheel by developing one-offs of undemonstrated value but with local small “p” political appeal. In my opinion this once again illustrates why it would be a good idea to have a single point national clearing house for mental health programs. But not just any kind of clearing house – one that only includes programs for which there is substantive evidence of effectiveness and cost effectiveness. Both are needed. And, this is not a “best practice” list of programs. I for one would like to see the whole idea of “best practice” scrapped and replaced by the framework of “best evidence”. I have seen to many “best practices” unable to demonstrate substantive value while at the same time costing us dearly in both implementation and opportunity lost.
 
This could surely be a role of the Public Health Agency of Canada. But it will take a bit of reforming to ensure it is responsibly carried out.
 
--Stan

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This is a great set of comments and rings very true. 

I totally agree that scientists (just like everyone else) have their biases and foibles.  After all, scientists are human beings too!  But science is different than scientists. 

The scientific method is the most objective frame that we have by which to evaluate and predict.  Science is not about finding truth.  It is only about being less wrong most of the time.  The scientific method (experimental design and mathematics) gives us the ability to test what we believe.  The scientific method is not used to prove something is correct, on the contrary, the scientific method is designed to prove that something is not correct!  It is designed to test what is called the “null hypothesis”.  It takes ideas that come out of left field (or wherever else they come from) and puts those ideas to an independent test.

t does not drive our beliefs.  It does however challenge our beliefs.  In that way it is self-correcting. Of course scientific inquiry and understanding lives within a wider social context.  That is one of the great features of science. 

But gravity is gravity, social context notwithstanding.  And thus it is nasty, brutish and long.  As Brecht said, (something like this) - the purpose of science is to save us from everlasting error.

By Christina Carew on May 11th

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