Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News
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Lifetime and current depression rates for Americans have reached a new high.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 29% of U.S. adults report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime and 17.8% of Americans have or are being treated for depression. Both metrics have increased since Gallup began collecting data on depression in 2015.
The poll, which was published on Wednesday, surveyed 5,167 U.S. adults between Feb. 21-28 as part of the Gallup Panel, which is a group of about 100,000 adults from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Survey respondents were asked if a doctor or nurse ever told them they have depression and if they have been or are currently being treated for depression.
The rates of depression are quickly rising among women and young adults, more than one-third of women have been diagnosed with depression and this rate has steadily risen at almost twice the rate of men, of which 20.4% report having been diagnosed. However, while this gap has widened, it is consistent with previous trends.
More than 34% of individuals aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 44 report a depression diagnosis during their lifetime, significantly higher than those older than 44. The poll also found that these two youngest adult groups had the highest rates of current depression or treatment for depression since 2017.
Another important finding from the report is that black and Hispanic adults are reporting a larger increase in depression and treatment than white Americans, which have historically reported higher rates of current and lifetime depression. Black adults diagnosed with depression jumped from 20.1% to 34.4%, a total of 14 points, and Hispanic adults had a 31.3% depression rate, which had increased by 12 points.
THE PANDEMIC LOWS
The poll names COVID-19 as a major contributing factor in the spike of alarming depression rates across the globe, identifying factors such as social isolation, loneliness, fear of infection, psychological exhaustion, elevated substance abuse, and disruptions in mental health services. These factors also explain the increase in depression rates among women.
During the pandemic women were more likely to lose their jobs or to exit the workforce due to childcare issues, women also made up 78% of all healthcare workers in 2019, “exposing them to enhanced emotional and psychological risk associated with the pandemic.”
Young adults were more likely to report loneliness, especially during the pandemic, and daily feelings of sadness, worry, and anger were highest for those under 30 and those with lower income levels.
Earlier this month Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for a national strategy to improve social connection and to address the “devastating impact of the epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” The advisory report found that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, almost half of American adults reported feeling lonely with millions of Americans struggling with feelings of isolation and loneliness. These numbers continue to rise.
Like the Gallup poll, young adults aged 15 to 24, were the most affected by loneliness, which found a 70% drop in time spent with friends over the last two decades. The number of U.S. adults with close friendships has also declined, with 49% of Americans reporting having three or fewer close friends.
The Surgeon General’s report found that feelings of loneliness directly impact physical as well as mental health and are associated with premature death and higher mortality rates, equating the effects of loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA), depression is one of the most prevalent mental health conditions in America and the leading cause of disability worldwide.
EDITOR’S BIBLICAL ANALYSIS
A person without a relationship with Christ is a person without hope. They cannot see the light of the truth of the gospel. In our current culture, they are berated daily by the darkness and lies of a sinful and lost world of self-indulgence.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. – 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
In an American culture that had been growing further from Christ for decades, the COVID-19-justified closure of local church buildings added pressure to the accelerator of the mass church exit. Protestant church attendance was still down 15% in the U.S. in the summer of 2022, despite 98% of churches being fully open. At least one-third of Americans have stopped attending church altogether.
As Americans have stopped attending church, we’ve seen a correlated rise in deaths attributed to drugs, alcohol, and suicide, according to a recent study by researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
And, naturally, we see a massive rise in depression amongst the young adult population that is driving the decline in church attendance. When we as individuals and as a culture reject the One True God and the salvation offered through His Son, we reject our only hope for joy, peace, and true love.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Instead, the secular culture and those who follow it look for fulfillment in pharmaceutical prescriptions, lusts of the flesh, and empty, fallacious ideologies. What they’re finding is depression, addiction, and emptiness.
Until people respond to Christ’s calls to salvation, to loving Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and spirit, to loving our neighbors as ourselves, and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to follow His commandments, the problems of “mental health” will not improve. For a mind cannot be healthy in the same body as a dead spirit.