iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 16/04/2025

Great plan! I might take you up on that 😁

Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 16/04/2025

Interesting! Please keep me (everyone?) posted on your talk and share a video link if possible, because I'm trying to learn more about causal mediation at the moment. Would like to use it for a study, but only if justifiable... Thanks!

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 31/03/2025

I’d say the opposite. Until tenure it’s one of the most uncertain careers. After tenure the balance between teaching and research depends on annual grant applications. Academics do tend to be uncertainty-intolerant of character, maybe that’s what’s causing the confusion ;)

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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

“Measles vaccination alone is responsible for half a percent of all US income this year, $76.4 billion. That is just from the reduced disease burden, it doesn’t include reduced medical costs.” Via @emollick.bsky.social www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

aeaweb.org

The Long-Term Effects of Measles Vaccination on Earnings and Employment

(May 2022) - The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963. Take-up of the vaccine in the United States occurred quickly and universally, leading to reductions in morbidity and mortality. New biological ...

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

This was a team effort with talented and driven colleagues from multiple countries. Funding was provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, who have long aided economic and social development in Moldova. Nobody is on BlueSky yet, but I'm sure they will be soon. FIN

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

These data provide input for targeted treatment efforts such as community mental health centers, which have been set up in the country in the last 5 years. Data also suggest that effective prevention of mental ill-health must consider the socioeconomic conditions in which we live.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

There are limitations to the work. Data were collected during the covid-19 pandemic and while war already raged in neighboring Ukraine, so they may not generalize to other time periods. The symptom screeners are not clinical interviews. But the study provides good initial data where there were none.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

As found worldwide, low-income participants (<2/3 of poverty line, 22% of population) had much worse mental health than high-income (>2x poverty line, 25% of pop.). The low-income group had nearly 2x higher odds of screening for depression, when controlling for education, employment & demographics.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

Older adults (56–64y) had more anxiety and lower well-being than younger age groups. This contradicts data from other countries, where older age tends to go with better mental health. Suggests it's not an effect of aging itself but of idiosyncratic socioeconomic factors such as pensions.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

We found that women had higher rates of depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and loneliness than men. For symptoms of depression and anxiety (internalizing disorders), this is also in line with findings in other countries such as the Netherlands and the United States.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

Overall, about 20% of the population screened positive for depression and about 25% for anxiety. This is in line with observations around the same time in other Eastern-European countries. (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....)

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

We used basic screeners for anxiety and depression (PHQ/GAD-2), for which a validated Romanian version is available. We also asked about socioeconomic living conditions and collected demographics.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 05/02/2025

New paper. With a big group of colleagues from Moldova and the Netherlands, we ran the first representative mental health survey of the adult population in Moldova. Local interviewer teams went door-to-door in 2022 to include 1826 adults in the study. 🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Socioeconomic correlates of mental health in Moldova: A nationally representative door-to-door survey

The mental health system in Moldova is transitioning toward a community-based model, which requires data on population mental health. This is the firs…

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 31/01/2025

This is not business as usual. It’s not just a change in funding priorities going forward; it is the reneging on funding agreements and is profoundly disruptive for even those grants that will be found to be compliant. Meanwhile, trainees who often live paycheck to paycheck are going unpaid.

science.org

EXCLUSIVE: NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with Trump’s orders

Grantee accounts remain frozen, while union accuses NSF of ignoring rules governing peer review

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 30/01/2025

I wrote about how it feels to be a UnitedHealthcare customer. New research confirms my hunch: broken trust isn't just frustrating, it's a health hazard. 🧪 jeroenvanbaar.substack.com/p/the-hidden...

jeroenvanbaar.substack.com

The Hidden Cost Of Unreliable Insurance

Profit-driven health insurance may irreparably damage what it ought to aid: health.

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Michael Inzlicht @minzlicht.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Roy Baumeister called ego depletion "one of the most replicable findings in social psychology." As someone who spent 20 years studying it—and ultimately had to admit it wasn't real—I have to respectfully disagree. Here's my perspective of what went so wrong.

open.substack.com

The Collapse of Ego Depletion

Science's Biggest Self-Control Failure

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

NSF grantees - people who have already received their grants based on a previously funded and approved research proposal - are being told to stop any activities related to DEI and accessibility. Call this what it is: government censorship of ongoing research projects. www.opm.gov/policy-data-...

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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 29/01/2025

The silence from Dems is deafening. We’re exhausted—looking for leadership and starting to feel desperate. Everything feels like it’s slipping away & electeds aren’t acknowledging it, let alone speaking on it. @dougjones.bsky.social sounds like someone who’s actually read the room. More of this!

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 29/01/2025

In all these cases, we could not fathom the outcome when the money was given. The grants probably appeared wasteful at the time. But they were critical to America’s dominance in the world. If you want to live in the light, don’t switch it off.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 29/01/2025

3) a forerunner of the internet itself, ARPANET, was developed with a grant from the Department of Defense. www.britannica.com/topic/ARPANET

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 29/01/2025

2) the monoclonal antibody treatment Trump received for his covid-19 infection in 2020 was developed by Renegeron with a $611 million grant from the department of Health and Human Services, not to mention all the NIH-funded basic research that made it possible; www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_A...

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 29/01/2025

1) our beloved AI chatbots only exists because of NSF-funded basic neuroscience research in the 1980s; www.goldengooseaward.org/01awardees/pdp

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 29/01/2025

Now that the leader of the free world has put his boot on the garden hose of knowledge, some might be wondering why we spend our money on research anyway. At the risk of stating the obvious, here are a few examples: 🧪

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 26/01/2025

It’s great for coming up with recipes based on what you have in your fridge. That’s been 80% of my use 🙌🏼

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 24/01/2025

Congrats, looks awesome! I can't wait to read it (really need it right now actually)

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 07/01/2025

Voor de Nederlandse volgers: een hilarisch accurate beschrijving van het ondergaan van een MRI-scan 😁🧪

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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Shame on the @washingtonpost.com, which at one time was beacon of the free press. anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

anntelnaes.substack.com

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post

Democracy can't function without a free press

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 01/01/2025

Happy new year my fellow scientific travelers! May 2025 bring you much inspiration, growth, and fun. 🧪

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 30/12/2024

I think if you removed the corrupting incentives, the corruption would stop. It’s not the people, it’s the rules we make for them (or in more colloquial terms: do not hate the player, hate the game)

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 30/12/2024

Shocked by the blatant corruption and greed in UnitedHealthCare’s Medicare Advantage scheme. You won’t believe the bonuses offered to practitioners… Excellent research by @wsj.com. Hope they lift the paywall. For those without access I will blog about this soon. 🧪 www.wsj.com/health/healt...

wsj.com

UnitedHealth’s Army of Doctors Helped It Collect Billions More From Medicare

The biggest Medicare Advantage insurer presented physicians with checklists of potential diagnose.; “I didn’t think I was obese,” one suspicious patient told his doctor.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 18/12/2024

Goed nieuws. En mooi dat het door Raad van State is gecheckt.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 09/12/2024

Did they know for sure the cod would die off? Or were they uncertain?

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 08/12/2024

What’s your best recommended reading on the precautionary principle? I’d like to know more about that for my book project. Thank you in advance.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 08/12/2024

Many of the ‘systems’ scientists care about, from minds to ecosystems, are so complex that you can’t capture them with deterministic models. How do we deal with this ‘modeling gap’? Perhaps we can learn something from a cautionary fish tale. 🧪🐠 jeroenvanbaar.substack.com/p/a-fish-tal...

jeroenvanbaar.substack.com

A fish tale that slams science

How cod ecology reveals the limitations of science and mathematical modeling.

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 06/12/2024

Hi Monica, could you add me please? I’m a computational cognitive neuroscientist by training and now work in psychiatric epidemiology bridging both fields. Thank you. scholar.google.com/citations?us...

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 06/12/2024

Thanks for adding! Interdisciplinary science for a mentally healthy society 🧪 en.jeroenvanbaar.nl scholar.google.com/citations?us...

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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

A new view on the gut microbiome and the social contagion of health 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily... via @jeroenvanbaar.nl

3quarksdaily.com

A new view on the gut microbiome and the social contagion of health - 3 Quarks Daily

by Jeroen van Baar

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 22/11/2024

As a scientist, I used the Mendeley reference manager nearly every day for the last 12.5 years. Today, finally driven mad by their terrible redesign, I made the switch to Zotero. Migrating took less than an hour and the experience is already endlessly better. AMA 😎

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 21/11/2024

This is a huge insight, very exciting!

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

What a chart. www.economist.com/interactive/...

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 19/01/2024

Does money make you happy? In a new post, I reviewed the adversarial collaboration between Daniel Kahneman and Matthew Killingsworth that attempted to answer this age-old question. Had a lot of fun writing this! jeroenvanbaar.substack.com/p/data-dispa...

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 15/01/2024

❗ 27% of American adults are "most days so stressed they can't function" (representative APA survey from 2022). 🧠 But 100 years ago, legendary economist John Maynard Keynes predicted we would all live a life of leisure. 🤔 What happened? I wrote a post about it, link in bio

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 22/12/2023

I wrote a Christmas-inspired newsletter this week, full of fascinating insights about the placebo effect. Read on: jeroenvanbaar.substack.com/p/the-perple... Happy holidays!

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Daniel @danielrembrandt.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

This is my favourite vampire cartoon from Science Saves Lives…

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Jeroen van Baar, PhD @jeroenvanbaar.nl · 09/12/2023

Trying to find median household income per month for Moldova, but lack the training... Using World Bank Poverty & Inequality Platform, I found survey median consumption at $10.6 per day (2017 PPP). Does this translate to 30*10.6 = $318 per month? 🤔 Help! #EconSky pip.worldbank.org/poverty-calc...

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