Reply to Are schools in the northeast just less happy fun and positive?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Are schools in the northeast just less happy fun and positive?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP- I’m serious. Kids seem happier in other regions. I wonder if mental health data supports this thesis [/quote]

Not sure about 'seeming happier' but there hasn't been evidence of this in the mental health data.  The primary geographical finding about mental health rates is that rural kids across the country have worse mental health (and less access to mental health resources) than suburban or urban kids and the trend has been worsening for decades.  
The states with high youth depression rates (e.g., over 5%) are: Iowa, Kansas, Montana (6.6!), North Dakota , Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming.  
The states with the highest youth suicide rates (over 10 per 100000, with some of these going up to the 20s): Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.

In the Northeast, states with a higher relative rural population (e.g, New Hampshire, Maine) have worse mental health than states with a lower rural population (Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York).

But, researchers haven't found a more general Northeast vs. Southern (or anywhere else) difference in youth depression/mental health controlling for rural/suburban/urban population rates.
Since the thread was a spin-off on Davidson, if you look at the 2013-2019 mental health surveillance data from a combination of national surveys, in North Carolina 3.6% of youth had current depression, with 18.8% of these having a major depressive episode in the past year, and a suicide rate of 5.8 per 100,000.

Compare it to Massachusetts as the proverbial "Northeast" and 3.9% had current depression, of those 16.5% major depression episode in the last year, and a suicide rate of less than half of NC at 2.8.  (These latter two are important to look at as there may be regional differences in reporting depression, but less likely to be differences in more serious concerns), Connecticut is similar with 3.3% current depression, 14.3 major depressive episode, suicide rate of 4.2 per 100,000.  New York has even lower depression rates 2.6, major depressive episode 12.9, and suicide rate 3.6 per 100,000.

Some Southern states (Georgia, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina) do report low youth depression rates like New York ( 2.7, 2.8, 2.7, 2.3), but their youth suicide rates are a lot higher (6.3, 5.6,7.7,8.4) which is sometimes interpreted as having higher rates of undiagnosed/untreated depression.  Other Southern states, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas fall fairly in the low middle of depression rates (generally in the 3-4 range like Connecticut/MA/NC)--though again with a general pattern of a higher suicide rate (7.6,6.8,7.4,6.7,7.3) which speaks more to lack of mental health resources again.

This is a great resource on a lot of data if you're interested: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/su/su7102a1.htm

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics