Monday, February 02, 2004

Research-based help for teens in jeopardy
Article in the February APA Monitor - "Nine experts at a November symposium spoke on what's driving some young people to abuse substances, court legal trouble, bully peers and attempt suicide. The meeting, 'What's killing our kids? Behavioral misadventures,' was the fourth in an annual public lecture series at Brown University... "  
  

Debating access to scientific data
Article in the February APA Monitor - "Any psychologist who has followed the science media over the past year has likely caught wind of the debate over 'free access' or 'open access,' terms used to describe free, unrestricted public Internet access to scientific information. Fueled by a San Francisco-based group called the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the movement's idealistic aim is to keep taxpayers from what PLoS calls 'paying twice' for scientific data: once when they fund the government agencies that sponsor research, and again when they pay online fees to access scientific journal articles. The problem could be stopped, PLoS advocates argue, by changing the financial nature of science publishing from a system based on subscription fees--which they deride as overly profit-based--to one based on fees paid up front by authors. The plan has a few strong supporters and many critics, both among science publishers and scientists themselves. While advocates praise the plan for its democratizing agenda, critics say it fails to account for the realities of publishing. .."  
  

Delivering interventions for depression by using the internet
British Medical Journal article based on research which found that "Intention to treat analyses indicated that information about depression and interventions that used cognitive behaviour therapy and were delivered via the internet were more effective than a credible control intervention in reducing symptoms of depression in a community sample" - and concluded that "Both cognitive behaviour therapy and psychoeducation delivered via the internet are effective in reducing symptoms of depression."