HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Grob, G N Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Grob, G N

The origins of American psychiatric epidemiology.

G N Grob

Psychiatric epidemiology developed relatively late (as compared with epidemiology generally). Nineteenth century psychiatrists, although avid collectors of statistics, did not use such data in any systematic manner. The impetus for the creation of an epidemiology of mental illness came from the work of late nineteenth century social scientists concerned with understanding individual and social behavior and applying their findings to social problems. Initially they helped to create the modern census, which represented a radical faith that quantitative research, when merged with administrative rationality, could replace politics. During and after the 1920s, the demographic analysis of the institutionalized mentally ill population expanded sharply; by the late 1930s and 1940s psychiatric epidemiologists had begun to study the role of socioenvironmental variables and the incidence of mental illness in the community. Twentieth century psychiatric epidemiologists, however, faced a severe intellectual problem; their work rested on a descriptive rather than an etiological nosology. Consequently, the results of epidemiological studies in psychiatry often differed precisely because of variations in the design of studies and classification systems as well as the subjective observations of the investigators themselves. The ensuing disagreements among those involved in the epidemiologic study of mental illness were a natural consequence.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. March, S. L. Hatch, C. Morgan, J. B. Kirkbride, M. Bresnahan, P. Fearon, and E. Susser Psychosis and Place Epidemiol. Rev., July 30, 2008; (2008) mxn006v1. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]