You asked
I would like to request information about:
- The number of older people (over aged 65) within the UK who experience Anxiety or Depression. Please break this down into the categories (65-75, 75-85, 85-95, and 95 and over)
- The total number of people in the UK
- The number of older people (over aged 65) within Stockport specifically who experience Anxiety and Depression (65-75, 75-85, 85-95, and 95 and over)
- The total number of people in Stockport.
Please can I have the data between the dates of:
August 2015- August 2016
August 2014 - August 2016
We said
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not collect information on clinically diagnosed cases of anxiety or depression.
ONS does collect information on the population’s self-reported anxiety using the following question; “On a scale where nought is ‘not at all anxious’ and 10 is ‘completely anxious’, overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?”.
This information is self-reported and estimates of means are published, alongside proportions of the population rating their anxiety within four categories (0-1, Very Low; 2-3, Low; 4-5, Medium; 6-10, High).
This information is available for the UK as a whole, and the UK by 5 year age bands (from those aged over 16 to those aged 90 and over). The data are from the Annual Population Survey (APS), with the most recent period available being April 2015 – March 2016 (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/measuringnationalwellbeing/2015to2016). This information is also available for periods April 2011 – March 2012 through to April 2014 – March 2015.
Self-reported anxiety for local authorities are due to be published in the autumn, however this will not be available broken down by age groups due to quality and disclosure reasons.
As part of the Measuring National Well-being programme, we report on the “Percentage of those in the UK with some evidence indicating depression or anxiety” (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/datasets/measuringnationalwellbeingdomainsandmeasures). This is measured through the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and is collected on Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study. GHQ-12 asks respondents 12 questions about their recent feelings. These questions are then scored and added together with the total score ranging from a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 12. A score of four or more indicates that the individual may have symptoms of mild to moderate illness such as anxiety or depression.
This information is provided as percentage of respondents who have a score of 4 or more at the UK level. The most recent time period available is for 2013 – 2014 and is published broken down by constituent countries of the UK, and English regions. This information is also provided by 10 year age bands, but with the oldest age band being 75 and over. Information is not provided at a local authority level or for further breakdowns of age due to quality and disclosure reasons.
Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study is not carried out by ONS, but the data are available from the UK Data Service (https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=6614&type=Data%20catalogue) under varying licensing agreements.
Information relating to anxiety and depression is also available from Public Health England (http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/profile/common-mental-disorders/data#page/6/gid/8000026/pat/6/par/E12000004/ati/102/are/E06000015/iid/90419/age/240/sex/4) and NHS (http://digital.nhs.uk/pubs/psychiatricmorbidity07).
Should the ONS measure on population’s self-reported anxiety suit your needs please respond and the provision of counts can be discussed.
The population data requested can be found within the following link (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/populationestimatesforukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland). The MYE2 spreadsheet within the Mid-2015 zip file will provide the latest population estimates for the UK and Stockport.