[Onscren text:
The Ohio State University
Wexner Medical Center
How common is seasonal affective disorder?]

D. Gage Jordan, PhD:
Seasonal affective disorder affects about 1 to 10% of the population. 

[Onscreen text:
D. Gage Jordan, PhD
Psychologist
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Dr. Jordan:
So, that's a range of different population numbers effectively for seasonal affective disorder. One of the things that's often interesting in the scientific literature, typically the further north that you go, the more likely you're going to see higher rates of seasonal affective disorder. For example, within the United States, about 1% of the population in the state of Florida experiences seasonal affective disorder, whereas 9% of the population in Alaska will experience seasonal affective disorder. So there's quite a range in the prevalence rates and oftentimes the literature suggests that colder climates, more northern locations, are more likely to be prone to seasonal affective disorder in that way. Seasonal affective disorder is most prevalent within the age ranges of 18 to 30, and it has a unique gender breakdown as well. We see that women actually experience four times higher rates of seasonal affective disorder compared to men.
Prevalence rates are a little bit higher in the younger demographic. We don't know too much about the prevalence rates in older adults. It's just because seasonal affective disorder in and of itself, it's kind of hard to capture in terms of prevalence rates. In terms of depression in general, older adults, ages 50 and above, 60, 65 and above, have unique struggles with depression. They can certainly struggle from seasonal affective disorder as well. Women are four times as more likely to experience seasonal affective disorder. In general, women are about one and a half to three and a half times more likely to experience clinical depression. There's unique factors that we think about in terms of how depression affects women. Going back to that biopsychosocial model, there are certainly hormonal differences when it comes to underlying biology compared to women versus men. There are certain psychological and sociocultural factors here, too.
Sometimes we think about how men may be more prone to high depression and sometimes those prevalence rates can tell a story we're not quite too sure of yet.

[Onscreen text:
The Ohio State University
Wexner Medical Center
For more information, visit:
health.osu.edu]