Release Date: Nov. 6, 2003

Throughout their lifetimes, 11.5 percent of Americans aged 17 to 39 will experience some form of depression-like conditions, say Bruce S. Jonas, Sc.M., Ph.D., and colleagues in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

More specifically, 8.6 percent will have major depressive episodes (lowered mood for at least two weeks), 7.7 percent will have severe major depressive episodes, 6.2 percent will have dysthymia (lowered mood for at least two years), 3.4 percent will have severe major depressive episodes with dysthymia and 1.6 percent will experience bipolar disorder.

“A number of these mood disorders are higher than previous estimates, and they predict subsequent onset of certain chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart disease and stroke,” says Jonas, a behavioral scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md. “It is important to recognize that dysthymia, which is a more chronic mood disorder, is nearly as prevalent as severe major depressive episode.”

The study was based on the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), conducted from 1988 to 1994. The survey polled 7,667 men and women ages 17 to 39, who received extensive physical examinations and completed a psychiatric assessment of mood disorders.

“Certain population subgroups disproportionately share the burden of these mood disorders,” he adds.

Women were almost 75 percent more likely than men to suffer from all disorders except bipolar disorder, he says. Non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican-Americans were less likely to suffer major depressive episode but more likely to suffer from dysthymia than were non-Hispanic whites.

Persons from low-income families were generally more likely to suffer from all mood disorders, Jonas says. In addition, nearly one in four widowed, separated and divorced people experience these mood disorders. Similarly, one in four persons in fair or poor health experiences these mood disorders. Smoking, asthma and hypertension are also associated with higher rates of mood disorders.

Because mood disorders can have such detrimental emotional, social and physical consequences, Jonas says it is important to continue to monitor their prevalence in the American population.

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