Live Poster Session: Zoom Link
Jacob Braunstein
I am a senior at Wesleyan University. I am an economics major with a minor in chemistry. After graduation, I am pursuing a Masters in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan while furthering my research interests and skills in Professor Michael Singer’s Ecology-focused lab. After my time at Wesleyan, I plan to attend med school to gain an M.D. and use it to either work in medicine or the biotechnology industry. Aside from school, I am a member and captain of the Wesleyan Men’s lacrosse team. I am also the Editor-in-Chief at the Wesleyan Business Review, the university’s only student run economics and business focused publication.
Abstract: Depression has been known to develop based on predictors of adolescent experiences, as adolescent years are important for biological development into adulthood. Relationships with siblings during these formative years can provide insight into depression prevalence patterns in adulthood. Additionally, biological sex has also been identified as a factor that can determine the rate of depression in individuals. To determine the association between depression and these variables, adolescent respondents were surveyed for this study through only individuals who had siblings within Wave 1 of The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (AddHealth). Less time spent with siblings and status as a biological female are both independently associated with greater rates of depression among study participants. Females are about two times as likely to feel depressed compared to male respondents. Further research is needed to quantify the true effect biological sex has on depression rate since females are more sensitive to emotional changes and depression during adolescence. Notably, the present findings are based on how study participants had felt in the past week. Thus, adolescents may not have been clinically diagnosed as depressed and could have just been feeling depressed in the days before when the interview was conducted. To more accurately represent findings, a study on participants who have been clinically diagnosed as depressed could have different results by having a standardized way to classify depressed individuals in order to more effectively compare them to non-depressed individuals.
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