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Alves L C and Pereira C C et al.

sample size of other races and colors may be also a concern about the reliability of their low depression prevalence at
high ages. Another difficulty is to compare this study with international studies that present a quite different definition and
classification of race given their historical and contextual factors. An additional limitation refers to the use of secondary
data, which may affect our results. Depression prevalence rate estimates could be biased, especially for small populations
as other colors categories in Brazil, by underreporting of self-reported depression, age misreporting, lack of race-specific
depression prevalence information and race misclassification, considering the problem of the classification variability of
race/skin colors in Brazil. Finally, it is important to emphasize that our data from two different surveys (PNAD and PNS),
which may affect comparability of depression prevalence due to different sampling method. However, we are confident
that such an issue should be minor as both are nationally representative and questions related to depression in these two
surveys are similar.
The present study contributed to a better understanding of depression by race in the Brazilian population using of the
last three nationally representative household surveys and reveal areas where advances still need to be made to achieve the
goal of reducing disparities. Our study has implications for policy and for future research. Regarding research, the method
applied here can be used in subsequent studies to shine light on the factors producing gaps between races and depression
within Brazilian regions as well as between races and other chronic diseases groups in the country.
5. Conclusions
This study demonstrated changes in HLE related to depression in the period between 1998 and 2013. For the most part,
LE and DFLE increased and the difference between the two estimates decreased, indicating that the number of years
lived with depression went down in the study period. We observed differences between men and women and among race
groups. Paradoxically, blacks displayed better estimates of DFLE than whites, which goes against our expectation that
blacks would be far worse than whites, granted that they have worse health outcomes than whites in a variety of other
indicators in Brazil. Further study is needed to understand the lower depression prevalence found in blacks that reflects
directly into a higher HLE.
Authors’ Contributions

LCA and CP originated the study and contributed to the study design, analysis, writing and revisions of the article. This
final version was approved by both the authors.

Ethics
This paper used publicly available data (PNAD and PNS) with no personal identifiers and therefore is in compliance with
the Brazilian Research Ethics Resolution 466/12 (CEP/CONEP) that deems this kind of research exempt from human
subjects review.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the UNICAMP and Fiocruz for institutional support. LCA would like to thank the CNPq
(Process no.: 471517/2013-5) that support her work. CP would like to recognize FAPERJ and CNPq for research grants:
E_10/2016/224553 (Jovem Cientista do Nosso Estado) and 307639/2015-0 (Produtividade em Pesquisa - PQ 2015) that
support her work.

Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

References

Albert PR (2015). Why is depression more prevalent in women? Journal of Psychiatry Neuroscience, 40(4): 219–221. https://doi.
org/10.1503/jpn.150205.
Alves LC and Arruda NM (2017). Socioeconomic differentials and disease-free life expectancy of the elderly in Brazil. International
Journal of Populations Studies, 3(1): 64–78.
Andrade LHSG, Viana MC and Silveira CM (2006). Epidemiology of women’s psychiatric disorders [Epidemiology of women's
psychiatric disorders]. Revista de Psiquiatria Clínica [Archives of Clinical Psychiatry], 33(2): 43–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/
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