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Understanding depression and anxiety

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The figure is a vertical bar chart, showing data for six emotional disorders from a sample of approximately 3600 men and 3800 women. The horizontal axis is labelled type of emotional disorder and is marked MAD, GAD, MD, phobia, OCD, and panic disorder. The vertical axis is labelled prevalence rate per 100 adults and is marked from zero to 12 at intervals of 2 units. For all the disorders, prevalence rates for women exceed those for men. MAD has the highest prevalence rates, at 11 per 100 for women and 7 for men. The figures for GAD are considerably lower, at 5.2 for women and 3.4 for men, while those for the remaining disorders are lower still. For MD, rates are 3 for women and 2 for men; for phobia, 2 for women and 1 for men. The prevalence rates for OCD and panic disorder are also around 1 for men, and only slightly higher in women.

 1.3  Early life events and stress