Clinical depression is on the rise among Vermont’s kids and teens, according to a recent study.

Every time a health care provider treats a medical issue, such as depression, during a patient visit at a doctor’s office or hospital, they enter a certain code to bill insurance companies. Researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used that billing data to track changes in depression rates for Vermont youth, and published their findings this summer in the Journal of Rural Mental Health.

Looking at what are known as all-payer claims from nearly 100,000 young people in Vermont between 2016 and 2022, researchers found the amount of kids under the age of 18 who received depression diagnoses nearly doubled over that time — from about 4% to nearly 7%.

It's a problem that's not uni

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