Depression Statistics
A little over 10 years from now, depression will rise to number two on the list of most prominent world health problems, according to depression statistics. In any given year, about 18 million Americans suffer from depression. That's close to 10 percent of the country's population, or nearly 1 out of every 10 adults, and the numbers are rising.
Depression statistics show that depression is a big and growing problem in the United States today. The depressing thing is that many people who suffer from depression never get the treatment they so desperately need. Less than one-third of adults and less than half of children with depression and other mental health problems are diagnosed and treated.
That means that more than two-thirds of depressed and mentally ill adults are never diagnosed and get no treatment for their illness, and that over half of all kids with depression or other psychological problems never receive any type of help.
Here are some other facts and figures that tell the sad truth about depression:
• Approximately 6 million adults are affected by bipolar disorder, or manic depression, in any given year. That's 3 percent of the U.S. population.
• Women are two times more likely than men to suffer from depression.
• About 12 percent of women will experience clinical depression at some point in their life.
• Every year, approximately 4 percent of adolescents in America develop a serious form of depression.
• Approximately 15 percent of adults over 65 suffer from depression (that's almost 7 million people), and about 3 percent of those cases are classified as major depression.
• Depression is not a normal part of the aging process.
• Around 80 percent of the people suffering from depression are not being treated.
• Up to 90 percent of people with depression who get treatment find relief, and this makes depression one of the most treatable of all illnesses.
• Approximately 15 percent of people with depression will take their own life.
• Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States today.
• Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24.
• Over 90 percent of people who kill themselves have some type of mental illness, and usually it is a depressive disorder.
• Depression can lead to other medical conditions because it weakens the immune system.
• Major depression is the top cause of disability in people ages 15-44 in both Canada and the United States.
• Anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of people with depression and other serious mental illnesses are unemployed.
• Depression costs employers $51 billion dollars a year because of high absence rates and loss of production, and that figure doesn't include any treatment expenses.
• More than half of the general population believe that depression is some type of personal weakness rather than a physical illness. They are wrong.
Depression is a serious and disabling mental illness that affects all age groups. It crosses race, educational and economic lines, and the problem is growing in many countries around the world.
All of these depression statistics were provided by the National Institute of Mental Health, or NIMH, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI.