When did old age stop being depressing? Depression trajectories of older Americans and Britons 2002-2012

Objective

This study aims to investigate the implications of the heterogeneous cohort composition on depression trajectories of older adults in the United States and England.

Design

Growth curve models were employed to identify depressive symptom trajectories.

Setting

Data spanning six waves over ten years (2002-2012) were drawn from the U.S. Health Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA).

Participants

Community-dwelling Americans and Britons aged 50 years and older.

Measurement

Depressive symptoms were measured using the eight-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D).

Results

The sample included 11,919 respondents (7,095 [59.53%] women) in the U.S. and 10,606 respondents (5,802 [54.7%] women) in England aged 50 and older. Older cohorts were shown to have higher depressive symptoms than younger cohorts in the U.S. and England. The trajectories of depression of older cohorts, particularly those of the pre-war cohorts in both countries and the war cohort in England, followed a U-shape. Differently, the trajectories of depression of younger cohort, particularly those of the post-war cohorts in both countries and the war cohort in the U.S., took an inverted U-shape.

Conclusions

The trajectories of depression in later life between cohorts took different shapes. This finding may lead to the development of more cost-effective policies for treating depression in later life.