You asked
Are there any available statistics on the number of cases, or any factors related to clinical depression, dated from 1950 to 2016?
We said
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not collect information on clinically diagnosed cases of depression.
As part of the Measuring National Well-being programme, we report on the “Percentage of those in the UK with some evidence indicating depression or anxiety”
(https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/datasets/measuringnationalwellbeingdomainsandmeasures). This is measured through the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and is collected on Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study. GHQ-12 asks respondents 12 questions about their recent feelings. These questions are then scored and added together with the total score ranging from a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 12. A score of four or more indicates that the individual may have symptoms of mild to moderate illness such as anxiety or depression.
This information is provided as percentage of respondents who have a score of 4 or more at the UK level. The most recent time period available is for 2013 – 2014 and is published broken down by constituent countries of the UK, and English regions. This information is also provided by 10 year age bands, but with the oldest age band being 75 and over. Information is not provided at a local authority level or for further breakdowns of age due to quality and disclosure reasons.
Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study is not carried out by ONS, but the data are available from the UK Data Service (https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=6614&type=Data%20catalogue) under varying licensing agreements.
Information relating to depression is also available from Public Health England (http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/profile/common-mental-disorders/data#page/6/gid/8000026/pat/6/par/E12000004/ati/102/are/E06000015/iid/90419/age/240/sex/4) and NHS (http://content.digital.nhs.uk/mentalhealth).