Comparative Epidemiology of Depression in a Nationally Representative Probability Sample of Youths & Adults.

The current epidemiological literature is dominated by studies of the prevalence and distribution of mental illness in the adult population. As a result, comparatively little is known about the biological, psychological, or sociological links and processes that contribute to the onset or course of early onset mental illnesses like depression, or the role the various social and environmental factors play in their etiology, course, impact, distribution, and prevalence. Although existing studies suggest that children and adult onset mental disorders differ in several important ways, many of these studies have sampling and methodological limitations that lead to tenuous epidemiological conclusions about childhood onset disorders. As the first systematic side-by-side analysis of the comparative level of depression prevalence in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents and adults, this study found that the mean depression scores for youths were significantly lower than adults, and that family, household, and demographic characteristics such as poor parental marriage quality, being burdened with adult responsibilities during childhood, being female, growing up in households with sub-par financial status, or where parents are not the primary source of financial support, or where the academic attainment of those providing the primary financial support is low, explains both the lower rates of youth depression and the higher rates of adult depression. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]