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If Odgers was correct that the "real causes" of the epidemic are America's social ills, then we would not find these patterns in so many countries. I just can't see a causal path by which America's school shootings, lockdown drills, poverty, or racism caused girls in Australia to suddenly start self-harming or dying by suicide at the same time as so many American girls. An equally large problem for Odgers' explanation is that it commits her to the prediction that the increases in mental illness were largest for teens in low SES families. After all, her explanation for why there was a four-year delay between the onset of the GFC and the onset of the mental health crisis was because the effects lasted longer for those "in the bottom 20% of the income distribution," who "continue to experience harm." Jean Twenge tested Odgers' explanation by looking to see whether rates of major depressive episodes increased faster for teens in families below the poverty line (shown in red in Figure 5 below) versus those whose families' incomes were at least double the poverty line (shown in blue). As you can see, there was no difference between the two groups up through 2012 (which is contrary to Odgers' thesis about the differential impacts of the GFC on mental health), and then a difference opened up after 2012, but in the opposite direction of Odgers' prediction.