Dr. Murphy's main research is a longitudinal psychiatric epidemiologic study in a typical North American population located in eastern Canada. Named as the Stirling County Study, the investigation study was started in 1948 and the time-frame for epidemiologic rates is the 40-year period from 1952 to 1992.

Three cross-sectional samples (1952, 1970, and 1992) have been studied and all subjects from earlier samples have been followed-up periodically. The overall current prevalence of depression in this population has remained steady over the 40-years. In the most recent sample, however, a two-fold increase was observed among women younger than 45 years of age. This increase was balanced by small decreases among older men and women. This finding corroborates retrospective evidence from a number of recent cross-sectional investigations that a "cohort effect" pertains and suggests that depression is increasing due to its higher prevalence among younger persons. Birth after the Second World War is usually taken as a marker for the effect, and all of the younger women in the recent Stirling sample had been born after that war. The interpretation that the evidence from Stirling County reflects a cohort effect is strengthened by the fact that the incidence of depression based on following the two earlier samples remained stable. Among the incidence cohorts very few subjects were born as recently as 1945. On the whole the follow-up evidence has indicated that depression is often untreated, frequently chronic, significantly associated with mortality, and more prevalent among the poor than the well-to-do.

In addition, Dr. Murphy has conducted similar studies in New York City, Nigeria, Alaska, and South Vietnam (the latter prior to the end of the Vietnam War). Across all these studies, the highest rates of depression and anxiety were found in Vietnam among prisoners of war, refugees, and victims of bombing attacks.

Ph.D., 1960, Cornell University