Thursday, 4:30 PM
Depression weighs on local Puerto Ricans
By Stephen Smith, GLOBE STAFF
Puerto Ricans in Greater Boston are in the midst of an epidemic of depression, researchers reported Monday, with 58 percent of middle-aged women and 38 percent of middle-aged men diagnosed with the condition.
The findings emerged from a major ongoing study of Puerto Rican health being conducted by researchers at Tufts and Northeastern universities who are using four-hour, in-person interviews and blood and urine tests to look at a range of health issues in the state’s largest Hispanic group. The study, the most elaborate portrait ever of the medical status of Puerto Ricans in the Boston area, also has found alarmingly high rates of diabetes and obesity.
But researchers said it was the findings on depression that especially stunned them — more than two-thirds of the Puerto Ricans who said they were diagnosed with depression reported taking medications to control the disease.
Researchers and specialists in the study of health disparities attribute the high rate of depression to the stress of poverty, social isolation, chronic disease, and poor diet.
