You may want to think twice the next time you neglect that mold festering on your shower curtain - eventually, it could very well land you a bottle of Zoloft.
While the mold encountered in a Brown residence hall is likely not enough to cause depression, excessive amounts of mold in a home are directly connected to depression in its inhabitants, according to a recent study led by Assistant Professor of Community Health Edmond Shenassa.
Shenassa's team initially set out to disprove a connection between mold and depression, he said, after he encountered press in the UK that suggested a connection between the two. Shenassa said he was initially skeptical of a direct relationship between the two, believing instead that mold coincided with environmental and social conditions that cause depression.
"I didn't understand at the time that mold is a toxin," Shenassa said. "Mold can theoretically affect your brain functioning."
Shenassa's team included Allison Liebhaber '05, as well as researchers from other universities and the World Health Organization. The team used WHO survey data from 5,882 adults, collected from eight European cities. Using the data collected by WHO, the team performed a statistical analysis and "controlled for the illnesses related to mold," said Liebhaber, a community health concentrator, who had used the same data for her senior thesis. Expecting the controls to prove their hypothesis that factors independent of but related to mold caused depression, the team found that "independently of physical illness there's a connection (between mold and depression)," Shenassa said.
Shenassa admitted the need for further research on the connection between mold and depression. "It's possible there's another factor here we're not measuring," he said. "We're going to do some ... laboratory studies to examine that link."
Still, the implications of the study are profound, Liebhaber said. "It shows that the quality of (a person's) housing and the environment that someone's living in has an even greater impact on quality of life than we thought."
One's perception of control over their home is also a factor, Liebhaber noted. "Having mold in your home can cause you to feel like you don't have control over your home, which can make you feel depressed," she said.
Hannah Twomey '08.5 said, based on her experience, Shenassa's findings make sense. "Coming from Ireland where it's very damp, if you're in a damp home, even if there's no direct health correlations, comfortability alone can affect your mental health," she said.
Shenassa said University residence halls are at no risk for mold-induced depression. "We're talking about a lot of mold," Shenassa said. "A tremendous amount of mold."