Summary
The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program (ECA) is the most comprehensive community and institutionalized epidemiologic data base currently available for mental health service planning. In this report, the authors compare the ECA with a previous community survey used to plan mental health services — the Stirling County Study — in terms of conceptual framework, research design, results and implementation of service planning. Familiarity with the Stirling County Study can inform users of ECA data regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the ECA data for health services research.
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Supported in part by NIH grants MH35386 and MH40159.
The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program is a series of five epidemiologic research studies performed by independent research teams in collaboration with staff of the Division of Clinical Research and the Division of Biometry and Applied Sciences of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The NIMH principal collaborators are Darrel A. Regier, M.D., M.P.H., Ben Z. Locke, M.S.P.H., and Jack D. Burke, Jr., M.D., M.P.H.; the NIMH project officer William J.Huber. The principal investigators from the five sites are as follows: Yale University, New Haven, CT (supported by cooperative agreement UO1 MH34224); Jerome K.Myers, Ph.D., Myrna M.Weissman, Ph.D., and Gary L. Tischler, M.D. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (supported by cooperative agreement UO1 MH33780); Morton Kramer, Sc.D., Sam Shapiro, and Shep Kellman, Ph.D. Washington University, St. Louis, MO (supported by cooperative agreement UO1 MH33883); Lee N.Robins, Ph.D., and John Helzer, M.D. Duke University, Durham, NC (supported by cooperative agreement UO1 MH35386); Linda K. George, Ph.D., and Dan Blazer, M.D., Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles (supported by cooperative agreement UO1 MH35865); Marvin Karno, M.D., Richard Hough, Ph.D., Javier Escobar, M.D., Audrey Burman, Ph.D., and Dianne Timbers, Ph.D. The authors wish to thank Drs. Jane M.Murphy and Alexander Leighton for their review of the manuscript and valuable suggestions.
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Blazer, D., George, L. & Winfield, I. Epidemiologic data and planning mental health services. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 26, 21–27 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00783576
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00783576