Depressing News about Jewish Men
June 6, 1998
The Harvard Mental Health Letter reports that a community survey in Los Angeles and New Haven finds a high rate of mood disorders and a low rate of alcoholism among Jewish men. Jews, the letter reports, “had a higher rate of major depression than Catholics or Protestants” and “Jewish men were almost as likely to have a history of major depression as Jewish women, although the rate was twice as high in women among Protestants and Catholics.”
“The lifetime rate of alcohol abuse and dependence is 11% in Jewish men and 28% in Catholic and Protestant men—two and a half times as high.”
The authors point out that men and women have also been found to be equally vulnerable to depression among the Amish of Pennsylvania, who drink no alcohol.
