I had to recently change my junior theme topic. My why question used to be 'Why does depression happen in privileged communities?'. I realized that this would be a tough topic, because the 'depression epidemic' of affluent societies is such a new topic that there is hardly any research on it yet. Also, it is hard to tell if there is a significantly greater amount of depression in affluent areas than in areas with poverty because affluent areas clearly diagnose more often. This seriously skews the results.
My why question is now 'Why is mental illness on the rise as America's affluence increases?". I chose to research mental illness first and wait to see if I have enough information to focus on a more specific disease, such as depression or anxiety. Still, this issue is pretty recent, but I am finding more information than I did before. It is also a challenge to find studies directly relating instances of mental illness to time and increase in wealth.
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