WHAT ARE THE PUBLIC-HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF SUBCLINICAL DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS

Longitudinal data from a community study of 9900 adults in the United States show that persons with depressive symptoms, as compared to thos e without such symptoms, were 4.4 times more likely to develop a first onset major depression over one year. The attributable risk, a measur e which reflects both the relative risk associated with depressive sym ptoms (4.4) and the prevalence of exposure to that risk (24%) and is a useful measure for documenting burden of a risk to the community, ind icated that more than 50% of first onset major depressions are associa ted with prior depressive symptoms. Since depressive symptoms have a h igh prevalence in the community, but are often unrecognized and untrea ted in clinical practice, we conclude that their identification and th e development of effective treatments could have public health implica tions for the prevention of associated social morbidity, service utili zation and major depression.