AMERICAn youth are in the midst of a mental-illness epidemic. Few know this better than Daniel Eisenberg. In 2007 the UCLA health-policy professor, then at the University of Michigan, sent a mental-health survey to 5,591 college students and found that 22% showed signs of depression. Over the next 15 years as new students were polled this figure grew. In 2022, when more than 95,000 students at 373 universities were surveyed, a staggering 44% displayed symptoms of depression. Then, curiously, the trend reversed. In 2023 41% of students seemed depressed; in 2024, the figure fell again to 38%. Mr Eisenberg is cautiously optimistic. “It’s the first time that things are moving in a positive direction.”