Depression rates in the United States are skyrocketing, particularly among young adults and women, a new poll shows. Women’s rates of depression during their lifetimes climbed from 26.2% in 2017 to 36.7% in 2023.
Depression rates in the United States are skyrocketing, particularly among young adults and women, a new poll shows.
The survey, published by Gallup on Wednesday, found 29% of U.S. adults report being diagnosed with depression at some point during their lifetimes, an increase from 19.6% in 2015.
Meanwhile, 17.8% of those aged 18 and older either currently have or are currently being treated for depression, up from 10.5% in 2015.
According to Gallup, both rates are the highest ever recorded by the analytics company since it began tracking depression rates.
“I think the results are startling,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup National Health and Well-Being, told ABC News. “The disproportionate manner in which some groups have been affected by this makes sense to me based upon what we know about other research and those sharp increases in those depression rates among those adults under 30, women too, Blacks and Hispanics, they are really eye-popping.”
Although the COVID-19 pandemic can’t be blamed completely for the increasing rates, it definitely was a major factor, Witters said.
“Both of these rates had kind of been coming up over the years pre-pandemic,” he said. “And you don’t want to get too far out in front of your skis as far as putting all the blame on the pandemic.”
He went on, “There’s plenty of other big factors out there that could be relevant to these increasing rates that we’ve been measuring but the pandemic’s a big one and indeed the rates have really come up significantly in the years since COVID hit.”
Women’s rates of depression during their lifetimes climbed from 26.2% in 2017 to 36.7% in 2023. Rates of those with current depression increased from 17.6% to 23.8% over the same period.
By comparison, men with depression during their lifetimes saw a smaller increase from 17.7% in 2017 to 20.4% in 2023. Current rates for depression rose from 9.3% to 11.3%.
Social media has an impact
Witters said women have historically had higher rates of depression than men. COVID, however, may have led to a jump in these rates due to women being disproportionately forced to leave the workforce to take care of children at home and that fact that they make up a higher percentage of frontline health care workers.
Witters pointed to other research showing a growing mental health crisis among young people in the U.S.
“Obviously social media predates 2017, but social media had the effect on a lot of kids where they feel left out, they feel compelled to look at social media, and they see people out having fun, and they’re not a part of it,” he said. “They can get ostracized through social media.”
Source: ABC