Poverty cause depression to surge in northern England: Report

A new study carried out in the United Kingdom shows poverty has taken its toll on people living in traditionally deprived areas in northern England.

Results of the study by the Guardian newspaper published on Monday showed that the most depressed English communities were those living in the north and the Midlands, in west England.

The report said people living in south of England, including in the capital London and in the wealthy regions like Kent, had almost not felt the depression epidemic.

It said 12 out of 15 neighborhoods with the highest prevalence of depression were in the poorest pockets of the north-west of England with the highest rate reported in Brinnington, a suburb of Stockport, in Greater Manchester, where 23.6% of patients were depressed.

Conversely, 12 out of 15 neighborhoods least affected by depression were in London, where in affluent areas like Westminster, where a normal house can cost £3.5 million, just over three percent of patients had been admitted with depression problems.

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However, medical professionals said the real rate of depression in northern England was much higher than reported in the study. A doctor told the Guardian that more than 60 percent of the patients he had seen over the past six weeks had suffered from depression.

Poverty has skyrocketed in the UK, the world’s fifth largest economy, over the past few years. That has mainly been felt in northern English communities and in big cities like Liverpool and Manchester, where homelessness rate has surged and many people rely on food banks to find something to eat.

The United Nations said last year a series of austerity measures and a controversial government program on social aid had intensified poverty in the UK.

Official estimates say that around a fifth of UK population, around 14 million people, live in poverty.

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