Interestingly, although more than three decades of epidemiological research has shown that African American and Latino populations often do not meet diagnostic criteria for major depression, research also shows that these groups do have a high number of self-reported symptoms (Coyne & Downey, 1991). This implies that the true prevalence of depression among these ethnic minorities remains unknown.
The present investigation examines depression symptomotology generated from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), rather than diagnosable cases. As such, this paper reports findings from an analysis of 26,554 persons in a sample generated from combined cross-sectional National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) datasets in years 1994, 1995, and 1996. Zero-inflated Poisson regression analysis revealed higher counts of major depressive symptoms among persons who are severely poor, who have fewer social resources available, and who had more emergency room visits. The analyses further indicated being an African American increases the expected number of depression symptoms by 8 percent. No statistically significant depression symptom differences were found between Hispanics and Whites.
These findings suggest that social workers in mental health and primary care settings should be aware of the possibility of debilitating depression symptoms that do not meet the diagnostic criteria for full-blown disorder, particularly among African Americans. Moreover, the results emphasize the importance of considering ethnic differences in expressions of depression when undertaking assessments and developing treatment-planning goals.