I’m pretty sure this is an altoid, so I don’t think it’s gonna help her get over her sophomore slump.

A week into the semester, Bwog received a tip from a concerned reader asking a very topical and important question: how many antidepressant prescriptions are filled at the Duane Reade by campus? Wanting to get to the bottom of the scoop, one Staff Writer decided to put her humanities major to good use and determine the definitive, statistical answer. 

As a History and Political Science major, I have not done any form of math in years (unless you count calculating tip at Serafina). Knowing the importance of this question, I sacrificed my well-being for the good of the Columbia dependent and our very helpful antidepressants. Let us start with the basics before we get into the technicalities.

Assumptions:

• First, let’s clarify our antidepressant variables. Unlike Barnumbia students, not all antidepressants are made alike. There are four core groups of meds that we will incorporate into our method.
• Although there are SNRI’s, SSRIs, MAOIs and Tricyclic antidepressants, let us assume that the majority of students are prescribed SNRI’s and SSRI’s by their very well paid psychiatrists.
• As for population, Columbia University has 15,798 undergraduate students. We need to add Barnard students to this – I know, I too was irked to find out we weren’t included in the headcount – and there are approximately 2,576 students at Barnard. Thus, if we add up all the university’s students, there are approximately 35,005 students enrolled in Morningside Heights. For this study, we will not include other Morningside schools, the sole reason being that I hate numbers and I don’t want to deal with more.

Method:

• Since we’re talking about MoHi pharmacies, we can exclude off-campus students. Let’s say about 82% of students live on campus. That brings us to 28,704 students.
• Now, let us ‘lowball’ and assume that 70% of these students take some sort of antidepressant. Now we have 20,106 picking up those orange bottles every month.
• Getting to the Antidepressants, let’s use the big ones. SSRI’s are the big ones, followed by SNRI’s. After some loose surveying, the most commonly prescribed ones for people under 50 are Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, Welbutrin, Effexor, Celexa, and Cymbalta (if you’re into getting meds based on catchy advertisement songs).  Welbutrin is usually prescribed with an SSRI so we’ll count that as two. That brings us to seven types.
• Pharmacies: There’s the Rite Aid on 110th, the Duane Reade on 111th, and that little one by the Enclave that I’m just gonna discount entirely. So there are two main sites.
• I have now used my calculator more than I ever have in my life. Okay, now for the findings. Let’s say 78% are filled at Duane Reade. 
• If we’re taking this calculation as fact–which we should not–then that means 15,683 people fill their monthly prescriptions at Duane Reade.
• Now just to be thorough, I’ll go the extra step. I’m going to say the majority of students are on Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac, and Welbutrin. That gives us about 3,920 bottles of each prescription.
• If you’re paying attention, I noted earlier that Welbutrin is prescribed with something else. Accounting for this, I’ll add the 3,920 to the 15,683 which brings us to…19,603 bottles filled at Duane Reade.

WOW. That was a lot of math. Since I took a psychology intro lab, I know experiments need to be repeatable to be deemed reliable. I have no idea how I came to this number, so I can’t help you there, but I will now be taking these findings into account everytime I pick up a prescription. Enjoy your Zoloft, kids, and I will be happier than ever to return to my textbook on Ancient China.