The following is a look at the economic burdens of depression articulated by Mark Rose. About 17.6 million individuals suffer from depression each year. This is around 1 in 6 Americans. Major depressive disorder affects 22.2 million American adults. This comes to about 7 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older within a year. The lifetime occurrence of depression in the United States is 16 percent of all Americans, which consists of 20 percent of women and 12 percent of men. Those with medical illnesses frequently suffer from depression, with 11-36 percent of genera medical inpatients qualifying for the diagnostic criteria of major depressive disorder.
Approximately 39,518 suicides were reported in the U.S. in 2011. It is the 10th leading cause of death among individuals 10-65 and the 10th leading cause of mortality. Every day, about 90 Americans commit sucide, with 1 person dying by suicide every 13.3 minutes. Approximately 90 percent of those who commit suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
About 20,000 individuals are affected by the loss of a loved one by suicide, although this does not take into account physical and emotional trauma experienced by those who attempt suicide. Information from the National health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that about 8 percent of those 12 and older were diagnosable with clinical depression. Women suffer from higher rates of this illness than men in all age groups, with the highest occurring between 40 to 59. At this time, 7 percent of men are depressed and 12 percent of women are depressed.
There is also a difference in reports of depression among different races. Approximately 8 percent of blacks, 6.3 of Mexican Americans and 4.8 percent of whites suffer from depression. Those below the poverty level are 5x more likely than those living at or above the poverty line to suffer from depression. The majority of those with depression report difficulty functioning, approximately 80 percent, due to their depression. About 35 percent of men and 22 percent of women who suffer from depression report that their depression makes it extremely difficult for them to function at work, complete tasks at home, or interact with other adults. Among those with milder depression, 50 percent report some difficulty in daily functioning because of their depression.
Approximately 1-5 percent of those 65 years and older suffer from depression, although this group increases to 13.5 percent of those in home healthcare and 11.5 percent among those who are hospitalized. Rates of MDD in the elderly, when it comes to recurrence of depression, is at 40 percent. Unsurprisingly, chronic health conditions increase the risk of depression among the elderly.
One of the most common times of depression in the life of a women is after birth. Between 14 and 23 percent of women suffer from depression while pregnant whereas 10-15 percent of women suffer from postpartum depression. Persistent depressive disorder, or dysthymia, represents a consolidation, in the DSM-5, of MDD and dysthymic disorder. Approximately 0.5 percent of those in the U.S. suffer from persistent depressive disorder, whereas 1.5 percent of those suffer from chronic MDD. The median age of onset for the former is 31 years.
Recurrent bouts of major depression around 35 percent of patients and is correlated with a very large number of chronic medical conditions. It is the leading cause of disability in the United States for individuals between the ages of 15 and 44, being second only to chronic neck and back pain when it comes to disability days per year for Americans in general. Major depressive disorder is one of the costliest illnesses there are. Over 83.1 billion dollars were spent in 2000 to account for workplace costs, suicide-related costs and direct costs. Even relatively minor cases of depression affect workplace productivity. A 2002 study approximated the economic burden of depression as representing a 30-75 percent increase in healthcare costs. Those with depression who do not receive adequate treatment response use twice as many healthcare services, costing their employers about 4 times as much as patients who achieve remission. Other economic burdens are staggering:
“Women with early-onset depression (before 22 years of age) often fail to graduate from college and earn substantially less income than women with later-onset depression or no depression [32]. The total economic burden of suicide is estimated to be $ 34 billion annually, with the costs falling most heavily on adults of working age [33]. Depression causes an estimated 200 million lost workdays each year at a cost to employers of $ 17 to $ 44 billion [34]. However, the accuracy of attempts to quantify such costs on a national scale are hampered by incomplete data, such as the underreporting of suicides and an absence of reliable data on suicide attempts.”
