July 12, 2007
Bowling
Green, Ky. - A study of depression data from 29 countries shows women are more likely to be depressed than men, according to the director of Western Kentucky University’s Center for Gerontology.
“Although the sex difference in depression is well documented in westernized, developed countries, there is little quantitative cross-cultural research on the topic,” said Dr. Dana Burr Bradley, who co-authored the study that appears in the June issue of Social Forces (http://socialforces.unc.edu/), a top international journal of social research.
Working with a colleague from UNC Charlotte, Dr. Bradley examined sex differences in depression across 29 countries using data from the World Values Survey.
“Significant was the finding that while levels of depression are higher in low gender equity countries, the gender gap in depression is larger in high gender equity countries,” said Dr. Bradley, the Clifford Todd Professor of Gerontology at WKU. “The results suggest that it is the biological nature and the social environment of individuals that together account for the sex difference in depression. Aggregate, cross-cultural research is just the beginning of the task of separating out how much of the universal sex difference in depression can be attributed to biological vs. social factors.”
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Dana Burr Bradley at (270) 745-2356.
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