epidemiologyandpopulationhealth

"When People Come First"

"we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress"

"The study used powerful statistical tools to test five hypotheses about the link between mental illness and poverty, including the ''downward drift" idea. The theory that stressful economic conditions bring on mental illness was the only one that really fit the data"

When the map of the human genome was presented to the world in 2001, psychiatrists had high hopes for it. Itemising all our genes would surely provide molecular evidence that the main cause of mental illness was genetic - something psychiatrists had long believed. Drug companies were wetting their lips at the prospect of massive profits from unique potions for every idiosyncrasy. But a decade later, unnoticed by the media, the human genome project has not delivered what the psychiatrists hoped...""