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The Seriousness of Depression

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I was doing some research earlier for my next article at Suite 101 — about the economic costs of depression — and I came across some amazing statistics. Even I, who live with depression every day and in fact have lived with it for most of my life — long before I knew what it was — did not know quite how stunningly serious depression is in terms of its effect on society. Here are some of the facts I unearthed about depression:

  • Depression is a leading cause of disability, not just in the United States, but in the world.
  • The economic cost of depression in the United States is $30 billion a year.
  • Almost 15 million adults in the United States have major depressive disorder. That’s almost 7% of the U.S. population. When you add in the figures for teenage depression, and for other types of depression (dysthymia, seasonal affective disorder, postpartum depression, and bipolar disorder are just some of the others) the figures become even more staggering.
  • According to the World Health Organization, depression “is the 4th leading contributor to the global burden of disease.” (That is apparently another way of measuring disability.)

Here is a quote from American Medical News:

[Depression is] the leading source of nonfatal medical disability among people ages 15 to 44 in developed countries like the U.S. and Canada. It is the leading cause by far. Nothing else is even close. In the whole world it is the second or third greatest cause of disability. It costs the United States $53 billion annually in direct treatment costs, mortality and lost productivity.

I’m guessing the discrepancy between the $53 billion and the $30 billion is that the latter is the more narrow cost in lost productivity for American business, whereas the former takes in those other factors (direct treatment costs and mortality). A 1994 study — 16 years ago! — came up with a figure of $43.7 billion for both the direct and indirect annual costs of depression.

I was not planning to write a blog post about this, but I was so totally blown away by the contrast between these facts and statistics and the relatively low profile of this disease in public awareness — I just couldn’t believe it.