The number of people in Bavaria affected by depression has increased again. In 2022 it was 1.51 million people, as the health insurance company AOK Bayern announced on Monday in Munich. This corresponded to a proportion of 12.59 percent of the Bavarian population, according to the results of the “German Health Atlas” just published by the AOK Scientific Institute (WIdO).
Bavaria was therefore slightly above the national average of 12.52 percent. In 2017, around 1.4 million people in Bavaria were affected by depression.
There are large regional differences within Bavaria: the number of people suffering from depression in 2022 was between 16.6 percent in Nuremberg and 9.3 percent in Lower Allgäu. “The map of the frequency of illness shows that more people are affected by depression in the north and east of Bavaria than in the west and south,” said Simone Helbig, head of company health promotion at AOK Bayern.
According to AOK, depression causes long absences from work: in 2022, AOK-insured employees in Bavaria were absent for an average of around 40 days due to depression (national average: 42 days). In terms of duration of illness, mental illnesses are in third place behind musculoskeletal and respiratory illnesses, it said. According to AOK Bayern, 4.7 million people are insured (as of 2023).