Talk:Disease of despair

Frontiers in Public Health
User:MrOllie and User:EpiDoc2014, I'd like you to reconsider this dispute.

MrOllie is correct that some Frontiers Media journals are sub-par. However, EpiDoc2014 is correct that this is not true for all of them. If you're uncertain about a journal, you need to look up the individual journal – not just rely on "that ham-fisted script highlighted it as needing further review, so I assumed 'actually do the work of looking it up' was a secret code phrase for 'definitely bad'" or "I heard that, years ago, Frontiers wasn't so great, so they must still be bad."

You can look up most medical journals at Scopus. The journal in question is described at https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/21100798718 What I see there is that the journal's CiteScore puts it in the top half of all medical journals specializing in "Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health" (which is the relevant category for this subject). The journal's website says that the Impact factors is 2.031, which is well above the magic number of just 1.0 that was promoted for years by some medical editors as a signal of sufficient reputability for MEDRS purposes. The SJR and SNIP scores (which measure prestige and popularity within the field, respectively) are just what you'd expect from a middle-of-the-pack journal.

In short, the journal seems to be fine, and IMO you shouldn't remove it merely because it's one of hundreds published by Frontiers Media. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

'Causes' section
Added essay-like tag as this section's style is completely unencyclopedic.

Bowwow828 (talk) 23:38, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The passages that read like an essay have been removed.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:55, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Introduction section
A disease of despair is one of three classes of behavior-related medical conditions that increase in groups of people who experience despair due to a sense that their long-term social and economic prospects are bleak. The three disease types are drug overdose (including alcohol overdose), suicide, and alcoholic liver disease.

This section doesn't read like a properly researched section. I also wish to raise an observation, particularly in regards to suicide. Whatever the cause, it's not a disease, it's an act.

Suicide can be caused by a disease, I assume. Provided you can find sources for it, to be added to the article. I don't think there are sources that can conclusively claim that. This whole area with suicide falls under the area of philosophy of psychiatry. That's a can of worms that's not as simple as somebody's moral opinion is. Gamma1138 (talk) 10:53, 4 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your opinion. Although it does make sense that suicide is not a disease and is rather an act that may or may not be caused by a disease or condition, I am not sure this article (in particular its introductory section) discusses the concept of "disease of despair" from a philosophical or moral perspective. Further, I am not sure that morality has anything to do with the subject matter of the article. 94.243.69.200 (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It has everything to do with it because the qualification of behavior in whatever manner involves ethics. For the statement that suicide is a disease, it is required to provide adequate scientific evidence. Otherwise, this has to be reformulated with proper references to the philosophy of psychiatry. I think it's a reasonable observation and this conforms with Wikipedia standards of editing. Gamma1138 (talk) 13:44, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Gamma1138, both ways of viewing suicide have their advantages and disadvantages. Consider what this source says:
 * "I have found it useful to distinguish between suicide linked to biological factors and suicide as an act of free will. To clarify this distinction, I use the terms disease and act. Disease is used when referring to suicide framed within the biopsychiatric discourse on objectivity (wherein suicide is a disease of the mind, and individual agency plays no role). Act is used when referring to suicide framed within the cultural anti-discourse (wherein suicide is seen as a free and even romantic choice and the individual is seen to have sovereignty over such choices)."
 * By labeling suicide a "disease of despair", the scholars in this area indicate that they are talking about biopsychiatric aspects more than cultural aspects.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

There's also too much bold text assigned for emotive emphasis, which is not encyclopedic. I don't understand the purpose of bold text for - Cognitive despair; Emotional despair; behavioural despair; biological despair; diseases of despair; death of despair.

This is highly irregular for Wikipedia considering the quality articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamma1138 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Assuming that they aren't Redirects (which are normally in bold face, even if that looks like "emotive emphasis"), then the relevant style guideline is at Manual of Style/Text formatting. You can fix the formatting.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 8 June 2024 (UTC)