Harmonisation of mental health measures in British birth cohorts

严重抑郁症和焦虑症出现在全球疾病负担的前十位，严重抑郁症也是全球第二大残疾原因，也是自杀和缺血性心脏病负担的主要贡献者。据估计，这些常见心理障碍造成的公共卫生负担将继续增加。尽管精神健康不良给社会和经济带来的巨大代价是毋庸置疑的(4)，社会原因和选择造成的不平等现象也得到了很好的记录，但关于成年后精神痛苦经历在几代人中不断增加的观点还没有得到太多讨论，然而，如果像最近的证据所表明的那样，这是真的，那么就具有重大的社会和人口健康意义，特别是考虑到人口老龄化的影响。要了解心理健康症状在生命过程中的发展和对长期心理健康趋势的调查，需要在队列内部和跨队列进行可比较的测量，但除了极少数例外，还没有调查允许进行可靠比较的测量条件。

Major depression and anxiety disorders appear in the top 10 causes of global burden of disease, with major depression also being the second leading cause of disability worldwide and a major contributor to the burden of suicide and ischemic heart disease. The public health burden of these common psychological disorders is estimated to continue to increase. While the huge costs to society, and to the economy, of poor mental health are undisputed (4) and inequalities due to both social causation and selection are well documented, the idea that experiences of mental distress in adulthood are increasing across generations has not been much discussed, and yet if true as recent evidence suggests, is of major societal and population health significance, especially considering the effects of population ageing. Understanding the development of mental health symptoms over the life course and the investigation of secular mental health trends require comparable measures within and across cohorts, but with rare exceptions the measurement conditions that allow reliable comparisons have not been investigated.