Healthcare, social services, food preparation and personal care workers such as hair stylists and childcare providers reported the highest rates of depression among more than half a million workers surveyed nationwide, a study published Friday found.
More than one in five people in those professions said they had been diagnosed with depression, well above the 14% of all workers surveyed between 2015 and 2019. Workers in retail, entertainment, sports, media and sales jobs had significantly higher levels of frequent mental distress, even after adjusting for demographic factors like race, sex and age.
Women, young adults and those who weren't part of a couple reported higher rates of mental health issues in the study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there were also significant differences based on industries and occupation, according to the paper published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The results come amid an increasing recognition of the effects that work has on mental health, especially after pandemic-era restrictions and long hours bred social and physical isolation.
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More research is needed to determine how jobs influence mental and physical health, which could help in the development of tailored treatment and prevention strategies, the researchers said.
"Workplaces can play a role in identifying and reducing psychosocial hazards and promoting workers' mental health," the CDC researchers wrote.
Workers doing intensive manual labor, like in fishing, agriculture, forestry and construction, had much lower prevalence of depression when not accounting for sociodemographic factors. That might be because workers in those male-dominated industries are less likely to seek care for mental health problems, the researchers said.
The JAMA Network Open survey found women were twice as likely to report having been diagnosed with depression as men. Fewer than 10% of male workers reported a depression diagnosis, compared with nearly 20% of female workers.
The report used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a general population survey that draws from randomized landline and mobile phone numbers. The survey of adults in 37 states screened for diagnosed depression, frequent mental distress, extreme distress and the number of mentally unhealthy days respondents reported in the past month.
