Prevalence of Psychological Distress Among Working-Age Adults in the United States, 1999-2018

Objectives. To test whether the prevalence of reported psychological distress increased among working-age adults in the United States between 1999 and 2018. Methods. I examined psychological distress in the past 30 days using the Kessler-6 Distress Scale, completed by 403223 participants aged 25 to 64 years across 20 annual waves of the National Health Interview Study conducted from 1999 to 2018. I examined overall and demographic-specific trends. Results. The prevalence of psychological distress in the past 30 days increased from 16.1% in 1999-2000 to 22.6% in 2017-2018, an increase of 6.5 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI] = 5.6, 7.3) or 40% from 1999-2000 levels. Statistically significant increases in the prevalence of distress were observed across all age, gender, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment subgroups examined. Rates of serious psychological distress increased from 2.7% in 1999-2000 to 4% in 2017-2018, an increase of 1.3 percentage points (95% CI = 0.9, 1.6). Conclusions. Since 1999, there has been an upward trend in reported psychological distress among working-aged adults in the United States.