FOI reference: FOI-2024-2452
You asked
I can see from your report Cost of living and depression in adults, Great Britain: 29 September to 23 October 2022 - linked here - that you obtained data showing that 16% of adults experienced moderate to severe depression. The data showed that when comparing between population groups, prevalence of moderate to severe depressive symptoms was higher among adults who were economically inactive because of long term sickness (59%) and young adults (28%). Further data showed that nearly a third of adults who experienced moderate or severe depression (32%) had borrowed more, or used more credit in the last month than usual.
I would like to request your most recent data on:
1. The percentage of adults who experienced moderate to severe depressive symptoms who were both aged 16-28 and economically inactive due to long term sickness.
2. The percentage of young adults (16-28) who experienced moderate to severe depression and reported they had borrowed more, or used more credit in the last month than usual.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
ONS analysis of cost of living and depression in adults was published by age group (16 to 39 years old) to allow a sufficient sample size for robust analysis of rates of depression by age groups. We have not created any further analysis showing the breakdowns you have requested, so this information is not held in a recorded form.
For further context, this information has not been created previously due to sample size reasons, as analysis of rates of depression for 16 to 28 year olds who are also economically inactive due to long term sickness, or had borrowed more, or used more credit in the last month than usual would not be statistically robust.
We also do not have plans to update this analysis of cost of living and depression.