Kai Ruggeri

Results from study of mental health in 92 countries (n>53,000): People are not doing well.

- U-shape for age is gone: Young adults lowest health, highest illness
- Education still matters (a lot)
- 45% of older people live alone
- Hybrid work > 100% remote or in-person

Preprint: osf.io/3jyda_v1

𝗔𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝟵𝟮 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 🌍, 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹-𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴:
- Levels of energy, calm, and resilience are alarmingly low.
- The “U-shape” of happiness across age has vanished: young adults now report the worst mental health. ⚠️
- Almost half of adults over 75 live alone.

If you look at the figure with household size, you'll see that this is not a trope but rather an empirical pattern. As with all such patterns, especially where the assessment is based on a mean, it is not absolute. People will far above/below, some moreso than others. But the pattern does exist.

Living alone in and of itself is not. An aging population living alone becomes a concern for health and safety, and on average, excessive time alone is associated with poorer well-being, cognitive decline, etc. Many exceptions of course, but it becomes one when highly concentrated on at-risk groups.

Results from study of mental health in 92 countries (n>53,000): People are not doing well.

- U-shape for age is gone: Young adults lowest health, highest illness
- Education still matters (a lot)
- 45% of older people live alone
- Hybrid work > 100% remote or in-person

Preprint: osf.io/3jyda_v1

For 5 years, @bjks.bsky.social has delivered episode after episode with the most influential behavioral & social psychologists of our day*. Strongly encourage you to check out his exceptional approach to hearing directly from authors that impact our field.

*He also lowered standards to include me.

Nature vs Nurture...vs Options? We find that when the world around us changes rapidly like it did in 2020, our choice preferences, immediate environment, & critically, *the options available* are what truly shape behaviors.

@senpei.bsky.social @sarahaj95.bsky.social
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Note: Due to variations in local privacy regulations, coverage is not necessarily representative for all countries (e.g., we have a lot of Swedish people in the sample, despite how it might look on the map).

The global distribution of 53,540 participants that completed our 94-country study on mental, financial, and social well-being.

GMH Project Global Mental Health Project

How are you doing? Would you like to share? We are currently running a short survey (3-4 min) in over 90 countries and languages through the link below. No tricks, no agenda - just interested in hearing how people around the world are doing.

globalmentalhealth.github.io/Research

If you were looking for something that wasn't polarized...

Longitudinal Assessment of Financial Well-Being Across Europe Confirms the Multidimensionality of the Construct - Social Indicators Research Research on financial well-being (FWB) is experiencing rapid growth despite a lack of internationally validated measures. Most of the literature relies on unidimensional FWB scores calculated as the s...

Tomorrow matters (almost) as much as today. In 13-country longitudinal study, we find financial well-being is as much a matter of income-wealth-debts as it is about sense of control, financial knowledge, & the future we expect (or fear). Critical data collected during extremely challenging times.

Freely available: rdcu.be/egrXI

Longitudinal Assessment of Financial Well-Being Across Europe Confirms the Multidimensionality of the Construct - Social Indicators Research Research on financial well-being (FWB) is experiencing rapid growth despite a lack of internationally validated measures. Most of the literature relies on unidimensional FWB scores calculated as the s...

Tomorrow matters (almost) as much as today. In 13-country longitudinal study, we find financial well-being is as much a matter of income-wealth-debts as it is about sense of control, financial knowledge, & the future we expect (or fear). Critical data collected during extremely challenging times.

Assessing evidence based on scale can be a useful predictor of policy outcomes - Policy Sciences With growing interest in more formalized applications of scientific evidence to policy, there are concerns about what evidence is selected and applied, and for what purpose. We present an initial argu...

In a study of 100 policies & 250 policymakers, we find that a) there's no such thing as the "best" type of evidence, and b) the scale of evidence used in decisions can be a strong predictor of policy effectiveness.

Freely available to all @policysciences.bsky.social

plus.columbia.edu/content/foun...

Research by @ruggeri.bsky.social suggests there is no overall “best” type of evidence for reliably predicting policy outcomes, but assessing the evidence using a ‘level’ scale offers much more robust predictions: buff.ly/4kjdOmE

Andi, to be clear, that was not interpreting focus groups as universally useful. But that some policymakers working on other matters, like something that may be unique to a single town or group, need focus group input in a way an RCT can’t inform. Not to replace RCTs in all instances.

Proposals for formalising evidence evaluation fascinate n disturb me. It's notable that a certain type of study strongly predicts policy success. But the key lesson from recent #philsci that evidence is only strong when you can *combine* different types of it into a robust theory of change.

Maybe not over-invested, but incorrectly assumed a universal value proposition. The most fascinating response was that RCTs don't inform policies on things like having sign language interpreters available in courtrooms or how many people should receive severe weather alerts.

Assessing evidence based on scale can be a useful predictor of policy outcomes - Policy Sciences With growing interest in more formalized applications of scientific evidence to policy, there are concerns about what evidence is selected and applied, and for what purpose. We present an initial argu...

In a study of 100 policies & 250 policymakers, we find that a) there's no such thing as the "best" type of evidence, and b) the scale of evidence used in decisions can be a strong predictor of policy effectiveness.

Freely available to all @policysciences.bsky.social

Freshman enrollment up this fall; data error led to miscount Freshman enrollment did not decline this fall, as previously reported in the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s annual enrollment report in October. On Monday, the NSC acknowledged that ...

Those headline stories about the decline of college enrollment this year were based on a typo.

It actually went up. Seven percent.

(The increase may have been 5% or another number to be published. On further reading of the linked material, it seems like the increase is confirmed but more details are coming.)

Freshman enrollment up this fall; data error led to miscount Freshman enrollment did not decline this fall, as previously reported in the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s annual enrollment report in October. On Monday, the NSC acknowledged that ...

Those headline stories about the decline of college enrollment this year were based on a typo.

It actually went up. Seven percent.

Seriously, 2025, we just met. Slow down a little.

Happy #JobsDay!
At 8:30 am ET, BLS delivers the most-important signals abt how economy is changing.

Forecasts’ center:
+155K jobs
Unemployment rate (UR) stable at 4.2%

Google earth imagery of NW Downtown Detroit

"Our cities are full"

Our cities:

Stop fucking printing everything Sam Altman says like it's truth!

And "perfect" can be relative. Everything can be fine for you, but if outgroup (individual or collectively) is better, that is reason enough.