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Overview of Descriptive Epidemiology of Mental Disorders

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Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of research on the descriptive epidemiology of mental disorders. Beginning with a brief historical overview of research in this area, the paper focuses on recent community epidemiological data collected in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication on the prevalence, age-of-onset distributions, persistence, severity, comorbidity, and societal consequences of commonly occurring mental disorders. The data reviewed show clearly that mental disorders are highly prevalent, that they are in many cases highly comorbid, that many of these disorders (especially anxiety disorders and disruptive behavior disorders) have early ages of onset, that these disorders often are highly persistent, and that they are associated with substantial impairments both in day-to-day role functioning and in long-term role trajectories.

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Abbreviations

ADHD:

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

AOO:

Age-of-onset distributions

CIDI:

Composite International Diagnostic Interview

DIS:

Diagnostic Interview Schedule

DSM:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

ECA:

Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study

NCS:

National Comorbidity Survey

NCS-R:

National Comorbidity Survey Replication

NAP:

Nonaffective psychosis

PTSD:

Posttraumatic stress disorder

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this chapter was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants R01-MH46376 and R01-MH49098. More detailed results of the National Comorbidity Surveys (NCS) can be obtained from the NCS Home Page: The National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R) is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; U01-MH60220) with supplemental support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF; Grant 044780), and the John W. Alden Trust. Collaborating NCS-R investigators include Ronald C. Kessler (Principal Investigator, Harvard Medical School), Kathleen Merikangas (Co-Principal Investigator, NIMH), James Anthony (Michigan State University), William Eaton (The Johns Hopkins University), Meyer Glantz (NIDA), Doreen Koretz (Harvard University), Jane McLeod (Indiana University), Mark Olfson (New York State Psychiatric Institute, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University), Harold Pincus (University of Pittsburgh), Greg Simon (Group Health Cooperative), Michael Von Korff (Group Health Cooperative), Philip S. Wang (NIMH), Kenneth Wells (UCLA), Elaine Wethington (Cornell University), and Hans-Ulrich Wittchen (Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; Technical University of Dresden). The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and should not be construed to represent the views of any of the sponsoring organizations, agencies, or US Government. A complete list of NCS publications and the full text of all NCS-R instruments can be found at http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs. Send correspondence to ncs@hcp.med.harvard.edu.

The NCS-R is carried out in conjunction with the World Health Organization World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative. We thank the staff of the WMH Data Collection and Data Analysis Coordination Centers for assistance with instrumentation, fieldwork, and consultation on data analysis. These activities were supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH070884), the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Pfizer Foundation, the US Public Health Service (R13-MH066849, R01-MH069864, and R01-DA016558), the Fogarty International Center (FIRCA; R03-TW006481), the Pan American Health Organization, Eli Lilly and Company, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. A complete list of WMH publications can be found at http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/wmh/.

Portions of this chapter appeared previously in: Kessler, Merikangas, and Wang (2010), © Oxford University Press; Kessler, Petukhova, and Zaslavsky (2011), © 2011 Lippincott William & Wilkins; Kessler, R.C., Ormel, J., et al. (2011), © 2011 American Medical Association; Kessler, Chiu et al. (2005). Copyright © (2005), American Medical Association. All Rights reserved. All used with permission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 180 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Ronald C. Kessler

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  1. Ronald C. Kessler
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Community Health Sciences Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Carol S. Aneshensel

  2. Department of Sociomedical Sciences Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Jo C. Phelan

  3. Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Alex Bierman

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Kessler, R.C. (2013). Overview of Descriptive Epidemiology of Mental Disorders. In: Aneshensel, C.S., Phelan, J.C., Bierman, A. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4276-5_9

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