Data relating to depression and anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic

You asked

Can you provide me with the following statistics in England, UK to aid my research on the impact of the pandemic on one's mental health:

1. The rate of depression per 100,000 inhabitants or any other population size broken down into each county in England since the beginning of the pandemic - either self-reported or through data gathered by the NHS on clinical diagnosis, ideally also broken down into each age group if such statistics are available.

2. The rate of anxiety (disorders) per 100,000 inhabitants or any other population size broken down into each county in England since the beginning of the pandemic.

3. The rate of prescription of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications such as but not limited to SSRIs per 100,000 inhabitants or any other population size broken down into each county in England since the beginning of the pandemic.

4. The number of COVID-19 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic broken down into each county and aged group.

5. The number of deaths within a positive Covid-19 result since the beginning of the pandemic broken down into each county and aged group.

We said

Thank you for your request.

We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. For Scotland and Northern Ireland statistics please contact National Records Scotland and NISRA respectively.

Depression Statistics

Unfortunately, we do not hold the analysis you are requesting. We do not produce statistics on depression diagnosis as a standardised dataset as we do not receive the data required to produce this on an ongoing basis.

However, in the response to the pandemic, we have produced Coronavirus and GP diagnosed depression in England using GP data supplied to us by NHS Digital. This data is broken down into 10-year age bands.

Anxiety Statistics

We have produced Coronavirus and depression or anxiety in Great Britain using data from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, this is based on Great Britain and may be of use to you. However, this data does not contain data by county and therefore, consider your request as information not held.

Prescription of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications

Unfortunately, we do not hold information on prescription of antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications. You may be able to obtain this information from NHS Digital and they can be contacted via email at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.

COVID-19 confirmed cases

The COVID-19 infection survey (CIS) is a household survey which refers to the number of current COVID-19 infections within the community population; community in this instance refers to private residential households and it excludes those in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.

We do not produce data at county level. However, in the dataset for England accompanying our latest bulletin, you can find:

• 14-day weighted positivity estimates by age and region in England on tab 1L.
• The historic series of unrounded modelled daily positivity rate for England and each English region on tab 1P.
• The official estimates for positivity in England on tab 1A.

Deaths with a positive COVID-19

The mortality data published by ONS are derived from the formal process of death registration. Deaths from COVID-19 may include cases where the doctor completing the death certificate diagnosed possible cases of COVID-19, for example, where this was based on relevant symptoms but no test for the virus was conducted. This differs to the data published on the GOV.UK website which are counts of all causes of death where a positive test for COVID-19 has been confirmed. Deaths with a positive test are coded using the ICD10 code U071 and those with suspected COVID-19 but no test has been conducted are coded with ICD10 U072. COVID-19 testing information is not supplied to us on the death certificate.

We do not hold these COVID-19 figures broken down by both age and county. ONS have published a breakdown of COVID-19 deaths by age group in our weekly deaths bulletin with statistics published up to week ending 28^th May 2021. Please download the 'Covid-19 - Weekly registrations' table in the 2020 and 2021 datasets for weekly deaths involving COVID-19 by age group.

Please also Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board. In the tables labelled 'Registrations - Pivot table' and 'Occurrences - Pivot table', you can see how the mortality figures vary week on week in selected local authorities, using the drop-down toggle and filtering on the week number and cause of death options.

For clarity: The filter/drop-down on the pivot tables for 'All-causes' does not contain COVID-19 deaths. By default, both options are ticked. If you were to untick the COVID-19 option it would deduct from the total deaths, leaving you with deaths from all other causes. Additionally, if both were ticked and you unticked All-causes, it would leave you with the total number of COVID-19 deaths.