1/ **thread: Mental Health and COVID**

Few things annoy me more than "experts" making claims and headline-horny academics publishing surveys about mental health and Covid-19 doing so with complete lack of nuance and scientific humility.

2/ Most of our studies show associations with "a cross section now" and some change to mental health (many worse, some better, some no change)

3/ Yet if a study shows a negative result, it's always "effects of lockdown restrictions" or "effects of school changes."

What about the effing effect of a WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC that's now claimed 3 million people (millions more seriously ill), entering its 16th month?

4/ Suicides are down.
Cross sections of studies of kids are mixed.
Drug overdoses are up.

And fact, using higher quality studies (not just those that reinforce the moral panic), the most reliable answer is "we are doing well, all things considered." https://www.depressd.ca/research-question-1-symptom-changes

5/ Ask yourself though: how can I know what's due to pandemic itself, pandemic response, pandemic length, or other things that happened during that time?

6/ The truth is, we can't. We have very poor studies... Especially in Mental Health... To answer that question.

The gold rush of every clinician to publish something has led to a million observational studies that don't point to cause.

7/ Many people, many checkmarks on twitter, many big researchers, are selfishly building their careers off of the poorest of evidence. Be wary of ANYONE who claims to know WHY measures changed. They are almost certainly full of shit.