Depression Definition May Underlie Racial Disparities
Abstract
Depression Definition May Underlie Racial DisparitiesMark Moran  Next SectionQualitative research in African-American communities suggests that many black people who report depressive symptoms are likely to attribute those symptoms to difficult life circumstances rather than to a treatable medical condition. Previous Section The âclinical significanceâ criteria for major depressionâdefined in important community epidemiologic surveys as a history of receiving care for depression or significant interference with life or usual activitiesâmay cause rates of depression for African Americans to be underestimated in those surveys. That was the finding from an analysis of data from the 1999 National Health Interview Survey for a nationally representative community sample of more than 30,000 adults administered the depression module of the composite International Diagnostic Interview-Short Form. In that analysis researchers found that there were no differences between African-American and white or other individuals when depression was determined solely on the basis of symptoms. But the same African Americans who reported symptoms of depression were less likely than whites to report receiving care and less likely to say the depression caused interference with their ability to function. The analysis was reported in the September American Journal of Psychiatry. Lead author James Coyne, Ph.D., told