Depression and Anxiety
Our measure of anxiety is the percentage of adults who report being nervous “all of the time” or “most of the time” over the past month.
Our depression measure is the percentage of adults who report that they have been clinically diagnosed with depression.
(Source: Authors' analysis of Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey).
Why did we include this measure?
We chose this measure because it encompasses many disorders and is more representative of the state of anxiety today. Depression is another common mental illness and is equally debilitating. Depression and anxiety can also affect physical health and contribute to the risk of addiction.
How does the US rank globally?
- Specific Measure:
- Depression: Percent prevalence of depressive disorders.
(Source: Authors’ analysis of Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation data)
- Anxiety: Percent prevalence of anxiety disorders.
(Source: Authors’ analysis of Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation data)
- Depression: Percent prevalence of depressive disorders.
- Percentage of countries the US outperforms:
- Depression: 12% (out of 114 countries)
- Anxiety: 10% (out of 115 countries)
- International Rank Trend:
- Depression: Worsening
- Anxiety: Worsening
National Trend Worsening
What do the data show?
On both anxiety and depression measures, we are among the worst among high-income countries, ranking near the bottom, just below Monaco, Finland, and Gabon on depression and just below Peru, Greece, and Cyprus on anxiety. We are also getting worse over time, both overall and relative to other countries.
What might explain these patterns?
These patterns may reflect increased reporting of anxiety and depression and increased public awareness of mental health, but there is general consensus that people are more anxious and depressed than they used to be. The next two measures (suicides and fatal overdoses), which are based on actual behavior rather than self-reports, also suggest a decline in mental health. We consider other explanations of this decline below and discuss common patterns we see with our other mental health measures.
The depression rates in the figure are higher than the anxiety rates. One reason for this is that the depression surveys ask about whether people have ever been diagnosed, while the anxiety surveys ask only about the past month. This makes it difficult to compare the levels of these two measures, so we focus on each separate trend.
For more information about data sources and treatments, download the Data Notes.