Our Publications

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The wellbeing cost-effectiveness of the Shamiri Institute

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Mental Health, Shamiri

2025 Giving Season Charities Update: ‘Tis the season to be giving

  • Happier Lives Institute
  • Topics: ACTRA, Charity Updates, Friendship Bench, Pure Earth, StrongMinds, Taimaka

Baird et al. and StrongMinds FAQ: Why one study doesn’t overturn the case

  • Happier Lives Institute
  • Topics: Mental Health, StrongMinds

2025 Mid-Year Charities Update: HLI’s first mid-year charities update and how we’re changing the way we keep donors informed

  • Happier Lives Institute
  • Topics: ACTRA, Charity Updates, Friendship Bench, Pure Earth, StrongMinds, Taimaka

The Happier Lives Institute’s public response to The Unjournal’s evaluation of our psychotherapy report

  • Samuel Dupret, Joel McGuire, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health, Methods & Research Agenda, StrongMinds

The promise of ACTRA: Preventing crime with cognitive behavioural therapy

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Michael Plant
  • Topics: ACTRA, Crime, Mental Health

Ironing out wellbeing: A shallow exploration into the wellbeing cost-effectiveness of fortifying wheat with iron

  • Joel McGuire, Ben Stewart, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Fortify Health, Malnutrition

Does a well-fed infancy make for a more felicitous life? How treating malnutrition impacts happiness: a charity evaluation of Taimaka

  • Joel McGuire, Ben Stewart, Samuel Dupret, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Malnutrition, Taimaka

The wellbeing cost-effectiveness of StrongMinds and Friendship Bench: Combining a systematic review and meta-analysis with charity-related data (Nov 2024 Update)

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant, Ben Stewart, James Goddard, Maxwell Klapow, Deanna Giraldi, Benjamin Olshin, Juliette Michelet, Thomas Beuchot
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health, Spillovers, StrongMinds

Toxic Cosmetics: A shallow evaluation of Pure Earth advocacy against leaded cosmetics in Ghana

  • Ben Stewart, Samuel Dupret, Joel McGuire, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Lead Exposure, Policy, Pure Earth

August 2024 interim update to ‘Talking through depression: The cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy in LMICs, revised and expanded’

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant, Ben Stewart
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health, Spillovers, StrongMinds

Site visit to Friendship Bench: Harare, Zimbabwe

  • Michael Plant
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health

Site visit to StongMinds: Kampala, Uganda

  • Michael Plant
  • Topics: Mental Health, StrongMinds

HLI’s Giving Season 2023 Research Overview

  • Happier Lives Institute
  • Topics: Charity Updates, Deworming, Friendship Bench, GiveDirectly, Lead Exposure, Malaria, Mental Health, Pain, Poverty and Economic Growth, StrongMinds

Talking through depression: The cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy in LMICs, revised and expanded

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Ryan Dwyer, Michael Plant, Maxwell Klapow
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health, Spillovers, StrongMinds

Response to GiveWell’s assessment of StrongMinds

  • Happier Lives Institute
  • Topics: GiveDirectly, Malaria, Mental Health, Methods & Research Agenda, Philosophy & Foundational Work, StrongMinds, Wellbeing and moral weights

The elephant in the bednet: the importance of philosophy when choosing between extending and improving lives

  • Michael Plant, Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret
  • Topics: Against Malaria Foundation, Malaria, Moral Uncertainty, Philosophy & Foundational Work, Poverty and Economic Growth, Wellbeing and moral weights

A dozen doubts about GiveWell’s numbers

  • Joel McGuire, Michael Plant, Samuel Dupret
  • Topics: Deworming, GiveDirectly, Malaria

Happiness for the whole family

  • Joel McGuire, Samuel Dupret, Michael Plant
  • Topics: GiveDirectly, Mental Health, Spillovers, StrongMinds

Donating money, buying happiness

  • Joel McGuire, Michael Plant
  • Topics: GiveDirectly, Mental Health, Poverty and Economic Growth, StrongMinds

Psychotherapy: cost-effectiveness analysis

  • Joel McGuire
  • Topics: Mental Health, StrongMinds

StrongMinds: cost-effectiveness analysis

  • Joel McGuire
  • Topics: Mental Health, StrongMinds

Cash transfers: cost-effectiveness analysis

  • Joel McGuire, Michael Plant
  • Topics: GiveDirectly, Poverty and Economic Growth

Mental Health Programme Evaluation Project

  • Barry Grimes, Clare Donaldson
  • Topics: Friendship Bench, Mental Health, StrongMinds

Global priority: mental health

  • Caitlin Walker, Clare Donaldson, Michael Plant
  • Topics: Mental Health, StrongMinds

Cash transfers: systematic review and meta-analysis

  • Joel McGuire, Caspar Kaiser, Anders Malthe Bach-Mortensen
  • Topics: GiveDirectly, Poverty and Economic Growth

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