An Analysis of Factors Associated with Depression in Adults Based on Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Survey

• Activity Number: 308
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Mental Health Statistics Section
• Author(s): Charlotte Mann* and Ulrike Genschel and Heike Hofmann
• Companies: Iowa State University and Iowa State University and Iowa State University
• Keywords: depression ; survey data ; mental health

Abstract

Based on the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), we investigate factors that are associated with depression levels of individuals. The question of which demographic factors can be associated with the presence of depression is quite old, and has been researched relatively thoroughly. However, many of the previous studies on factors influencing depression utilized in-person interviews or implemented their own survey, which required a large amount of time and resources. Through this study, we hope to show that it is possible to replicate previous findings through simple analysis of publicly available data. We used the 2012 BRFSS dataset, which is produced annually by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The BRFSS survey included one module on mental illness, which was administered to 13 states. We used the question, "During the past 30 days, about how often did you feel so depressed that nothing could cheer you up?" to measure the level of depression in participants.