Therapy and medication work to treat depression (not for everybody, but considered at macro level, they work). If you'd actually read the paper (which it seems

Therapy and medication work to treat depression (not for everybody, but considered at macro level, they work). If you'd actually read the paper (which it seems few people commenting have done, or maybe you/they don't understand), by using DALY's (an accepted (by the community) proxy for 'impact' of a disease), they account for the fact that since people in Western countries get treatment at higher levels, the effects are less. E.g. if I get depressed and get treatment, and work through this in a year, and somebody in Central Africa gets it and lives with it for 15 years, then objectively I am better off and should be counted at 1/15 th in the study (well actually you can debate that - you can say 'I study the amount of people who get depressed'. Which is fine, but different, and imo not nearly as interesting, except maybe for when you look at the genetic disposition for depression). I don't understand why people in this thread are so keen on trying to hold on to the position that depression in the West is high compared to other places, or even how they get to this position in the first place. To me it's quite self-evident that living in constant fear of being shot, blown up or just starving to death is more depressing than having to go through the agony of standing in traffic an hour before you can go home and eat a warm meal before falling asleep in front of the tv (to just name an example of what I've heard people as reasons on why life in the West is so 'stressing' and 'depressing').