When do people experience mental health conditions for the first time?

Mental health conditions can begin at almost any age.

心理健康问题几乎可以在任何年龄开始出现。

For many people, they develop in the early stages of life.

对于许多人来说，它们是在生命的早期阶段发育的。

Around a third of people who will ever experience a mental health disorder do so by the age of 14.

大约三分之一的人在 14 岁时曾经历过精神健康障碍。

1 Two-thirds do by the age of 25.

1 三分之二的人在 25 岁时就会这样做。

But this varies a lot by condition.

但这因条件而异。

Some are much more common in childhood or adolescence, while others are more evenly distributed across adulthood.

有些在儿童期或青春期更为常见，而另一些则在成年期分布更为均匀。

Knowing the age at which people might be particularly vulnerable to the onset of a mental health condition is important.

了解人们可能特别容易出现心理健康问题的年龄非常重要。

It helps societies offer support — whether that’s an assessment of risk factors, screening, or preventive interventions — at the right time to make a difference.

它帮助社会在正确的时间提供支持——无论是风险因素评估、筛查还是预防性干预措施——以产生影响。

The chart below shows how this age distribution looks for nine different mental health disorders.

下图显示了这种年龄分布如何寻找九种不同的心理健康障碍。

Each curve shows, among people who will ever develop that condition, the share who first do so at any given age.

每条曲线都显示了在曾经出现这种情况的人中，在任何特定年龄首次出现这种情况的比例。

The data behind this comes from a large meta-analysis of 192 studies by Marco Solmi and colleagues.

这背后的数据来自 Marco Solmi 及其同事对 192 项研究进行的大型荟萃分析。

1

1

First, those that commonly develop at any point in someone’s life .

首先，那些通常在某人生命中的任何阶段发展的。

This includes generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and bipolar disorder (the latter two are often referred to as mood disorders).

这包括广泛性焦虑症、抑郁症和双相情感障碍（后两者通常称为情绪障碍）。

Second, those that tend to develop earlier in life, with a very strong age peak around early adolescence .

其次，那些往往在生命早期发育，在青春期早期出现非常明显的年龄高峰。

Social anxiety tends to first develop in childhood, and almost 80% of those who will experience it at some point in their lives do so before the age of 18.

社交焦虑往往首先在童年时期出现，几乎 80% 的人在一生中的某个阶段会经历社交焦虑，这种情况是在 18 岁之前发生的。

Eating disorders tend to begin during someone’s teenage years, with a peak age of 16 and a median age of 18.

饮食失调往往始于青少年时期，高峰年龄为 16 岁，中位年龄为 18 岁。

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2

And third, those that tend to peak around age 20 but will often develop for the first time throughout adulthood .

第三，那些往往在 20 岁左右达到顶峰，但通常会在整个成年期首次出现。

This includes substance use (alcohol and cannabis) disorders and schizophrenia , which commonly develop in someone’s twenties.

这包括药物滥用（酒精和大麻）障碍和精神分裂症，这些疾病通常发生在二十多岁的人身上。

The chart above uses smoothed curves from the meta-analysis published by Marco Solmi and colleagues in Molecular Psychiatry .

上图使用了 Marco Solmi 及其同事在《分子精神病学》杂志上发表的荟萃分析中的平滑曲线。

Here are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting this data.

解释这些数据时需要记住以下几点。

First, the definition of onset age varied among the underlying studies in the meta-analysis.

首先，荟萃分析中基础研究对发病年龄的定义各不相同。

In some, it meant the age at which someone first experienced symptoms.

在某些情况下，这意味着某人首次出现症状的年龄。

In others, the age of diagnosis or first hospitalization.

在其他情况下，则是诊断或首次住院的年龄。

Differences in this definition can, of course, affect these results; someone may experience symptoms long before they receive a diagnosis.

当然，这个定义的差异会影响这些结果。有人可能在得到诊断之前很久就出现症状。

This could shift the median age of onset significantly.

这可能会显着改变中位发病年龄。

The authors did test the sensitivity of their results to different definitions and found, for example, that shifting from symptoms to diagnosis for depression changed the median age from 26 to 31 years.

作者确实测试了他们的结果对不同定义的敏感性，并发现，例如，从症状转变为抑郁症诊断会使中位年龄从 26 岁变为 31 岁。

Second, these curves do not tell us anything about how prevalent these conditions are across the entire population.

其次，这些曲线并没有告诉我们这些情况在整个人群中的普遍程度。

They are scaled by the proportion of people who will ever develop a given condition.

它们是根据将出现某种特定病症的人的比例来衡量的。

The depression curve, for example, is far lower than the schizophrenia curve, even though depression is much more common in the general population.

例如，抑郁症曲线远低于精神分裂症曲线，尽管抑郁症在普通人群中更为常见。

Third, this data only tells us about the age of onset.

第三，该数据仅告诉我们发病年龄。

It does not tell us about the age distribution of people experiencing the condition at any given time.

它没有告诉我们在任何特定时间经历这种情况的人的年龄分布。

Many people will have recurring episodes — or very long periods — with a given mental health disorder, which isn’t reflected in the chart.

许多人会出现反复发作或很长一段时间的特定心理健康障碍，这在图表中没有反映出来。

Finally, these curves are limited by the number of high-quality studies of different conditions.

最后，这些曲线受到不同条件下高质量研究数量的限制。

In particular, geographical diversity is limited, with most studies coming from high-income countries in North America, Europe, or Australia.

特别是，地理多样性是有限的，大多数研究来自北美、欧洲或澳大利亚的高收入国家。

Many thanks to Edouard Mathieu and Max Roser for feedback and comments on this article and its visualization.

非常感谢 Edouard Mathieu 和 Max Roser 对本文及其可视化的反馈和评论。

People are being diagnosed with depression at an earlier age than in the past because of increased openness to mental health disorders and improved diagnostic guidelines.

由于人们对精神健康疾病的开放程度提高以及诊断指南的改进，人们被诊断出抑郁症的年龄比过去更早。

Depression is one of the world’s most common health conditions.

抑郁症是世界上最常见的健康状况之一。

It's estimated that one-in-three women and one-in-five men have an episode of major depression by the age of 65.

据估计，到 65 岁时，有三分之一的女性和五分之一的男性患有重度抑郁症。

Mental illnesses are a range of conditions that significantly affect people’s lives.

精神疾病是一系列严重影响人们生活的疾病。

What are their symptoms?

他们的症状是什么？

Solmi, M., Radua, J., Olivola, M., Croce, E., Soardo, L., Salazar de Pablo, G., ...

Solmi, M.、Radua, J.、Olivola, M.、Croce, E.、Soardo, L.、Salazar de Pablo, G., ...

& Fusar-Poli, P.

＆Fusar-Poli，P.

(2022).

（2022）。

Age at onset of mental disorders worldwide: large-scale meta-analysis of 192 epidemiological studies.

全球精神障碍发病年龄：192 项流行病学研究的大规模荟萃分析。

Molecular Psychiatry.

分子精神病学。

Eating disorders, here, include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa , and binge-eating disorder.

这里的饮食失调包括神经性厌食症、神经性贪食症和暴食症。

Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations.

我们的文章和数据可视化依赖于许多不同的人和组织的工作。

When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources.

引用本文时，请同时注明底层数据来源。

This article can be cited as:

这篇文章可以引用为：

We are a live site and we keep our work maintained.

我们是一个活跃的网站，我们会保持我们的工作。

So our articles are often changed, including the data.

所以我们的文章经常改，包括数据。

You can browse previous versions of this work here.

您可以在此处浏览此作品的先前版本。