Researchers and scientists conducted a survey and have found the reason why depression rates in the United States are rising.
A survey has revealed that depression rates are rising in the United States, and that there is one main reason why.
The results come from multiple health surveys there were conducted on three successive groups of University of Pittsburgh students.
The survey totaled nearly 700 students and was issued before the beginning of the pandemic, and continued throughout the pandemic. Fitbit’s were used to track the physical activities of the participants.
Before the pandemic, students were taking as many as 10,000 steps a day, and when lockdowns occurred in March, 2020, those steps dropped to an average of 4,600 per day. During February and April of 2020, it was found that clinical depression risk rose from 32% to 61%.
However, the author of the study, Silvia Saccardo, who is an assistant professor in the department of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh said, “it is not clear that one caused the other”.