?UNIVERSIDAD DE CARABOBO FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN DEPARTAMENTO DE IDIOMAS MODERNOS MÓDULO: COMPETENCIAS COMUNICATIVAS V Name: ______________________________________________ I.D. ________________ Name: ______________________________________________ I.D. ________________ Name: ______________________________________________ I.D. ________________ Read the article below. The Sunnier, Southern Side of the Street by Rod Usher 1 In these times of bombs and bio-warfare, it is harder than ever to dance to that old tune, "Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street." A study published last month in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that "depressive disorder is a highly prevalent condition in Europe." 2 The report follows a decision by the European Commission to fund a comparative study of the prevalence' of depression in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, Finland and Spain. After questioning 8,850 adults in 1997 and '98, the study concludes that just over 8.5% of them are depressed, always or in episodes'. Generalized to the European Union as a whole, this is an epidemic that affects about 30 million people. 3 Women fare worse than men and, predictably, depression is generally less prevalent in rural than urban areas. But the most striking fact revealed by the study is the uneven geographic distribution. The study indicates that depression afflicts' 17.1% of the urban population in the U.K. and 12.8% in urban Ireland. In rural parts of these countries and in both urban and rural Finland and Norway, the incidence ranges from 6.1% to 9.3%. But in urban Spain, the percentage drops to a mere 2.6. Why? Spain, where I live, has suffered from violent terrorism for more than 30 years; it has one of the E.U.'s highest unemployment rates, one of the worst records for industrial accidents, and is near the top of the tables for road fatalities, 4 drug abuse and AIDS. It has Europe's highest level of noise pollution. 4 But what Spain has in abundance compared with northern European nations-apart from more sun-is what the researchers in this study call social support structures. These struc