Knowing when people are most at risk allows us to offer support when it might make the biggest difference.

Mental health conditions can begin at almost any age. For many people, they develop in the early stages of life.

Around a third of people who will ever experience a mental health disorder do so by the age of 14. Two-thirds do by the age of 25.

But this varies a lot by condition. Some are much more common in childhood or adolescence, while others are more evenly distributed across adulthood. Knowing the age at which people might be particularly vulnerable to the onset of a mental health condition is important. 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.

The chart below shows how this age distribution looks for nine different mental health disorders. Each curve shows, among people who will ever develop that condition, the share who first do so at any given age.

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

I’ve sorted these conditions into three groups.



...read more at ourworldindata.org