June 15 (UPI) -- Nearly one in five adults have been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetimes, according to a study released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report found that 18.4 percent of people have been diagnosed with depression, but it varies substantially by state. West Virginia was the top spot with 27.5 percent of its residents being diagnosed.
"There was considerable geographic variation in the prevalence of depression, with the highest state and county estimates of depression observed along the Appalachian and southern Mississippi Valley regions," researchers from the CDC and Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Tennessee wrote in the new report. "This report provides current estimates of national, state-level, and county-level prevalence of adults reporting a lifetime diagnosis of depression."
Many of the highest states were in the Appalachian region and in the south. After West Virginia, the next nine were Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Vermont, Alabama, Louisiana, Washington, Missouri, and Montana.
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Nearly one in four women were diagnosed with depression, compared with 13.3 percent of men.
There was also an age gap, with more than 20 percent of adults ages 18-24 being diagnosed, compared with 14.2 percent of adults 65 and older.
"The fact that Americans are more depressed and struggling after this time of incredible stress and isolation is perhaps not surprising," Dr. Rebecca Brendel, president of the American Psychiatric Association, which was not involved in the new research, said in May, according to CNN. "There are lingering effects on our health, especially our mental health, from the past three years that disrupted everything we knew."