Overview

• The paper synthesizes US BRFSS data from 1993–2024 (10 million+ adults), UK household surveys from 2009–2023, and nearly 2 million responses in the Global Minds Project across 44 countries from 2020–2025.
• Researchers report that distress now starts highest in adolescence and young adulthood and then declines with age, with midlife levels largely unchanged compared with past decades.
• The shift began around 2011–2012; the pandemic appears to have intensified youth distress in the UK, with no comparable pandemic effect detected in the US datasets.
• Young women show the sharpest increases, with US measures of “desperation” rising from about 5.6% in 2009 to 9.3% in 2023 and UK rates climbing from roughly 4.4% to 12.7% over similar periods.
• The authors caution that findings rely on self-reported surveys and do not prove causes, though they highlight potential contributors such as the Great Recession, strained mental-health services, pandemic disruptions, and smartphone and social-media use, and they call for targeted prevention and expanded youth care.