title: Explaining racial and ethnic differences in antidepressant use among adolescents.
abstract: We investigate the extent to which antidepressant use among adolescents varies across racial and ethnic subgroups. Using a representative sample of U.S. adolescents, we find that non-Hispanic White adolescents are over twice as likely as Hispanic adolescents, and over five times as likely as non-Hispanic Black adolescents to use antidepressants. Results from a decomposition analysis indicate that racial/ethnic differences in characteristics, including household income, parental education, health insurance, and having a usual source of care explain between one half and two thirds of the gap in antidepressant use between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. In contrast, none of the gap between Whites and Blacks in antidepressant use is explained by differences in observed characteristics. Further analysis suggests that there are large racial/ethnic differences in the extent to which behavioral and mental health problems prompt antidepressant use and that this may, in part, account for the large differences across race/ethnicity observed in our study.
authors.affiliation: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, USA. jkirby@ahrq.gov
authors.forename: James B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Kirby
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hudson
authors.forename: G Edward
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D044383:Black People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003863:Depression / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000208:ethnology*; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D014481:United States; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001741:Black or African American
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents