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Central Issues in Psychiatric Epidemiology

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Contemporary Psychiatry

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Abstract

Most of clinical psychiatry is about individuals. However, when these individuals are considered collectively, looking for general patterns, we enter the field of epidemiology. In his Herter Lectures at the Johns Hopkins University, Greenwood (1931) gave the most succinct definition of epidemiology as “the mass aspects of disease.” The word comes directly from επιδημιοσ(epidímios), meaning a disease that is “prevalent among the people”, compounded from επι (epí, upon or among) and δημος (dímos, the people in a district or country). It is the business of psychiatric epidemiology to determine the distribution of mental disorders in populations rather than in individuals, the factors determining that distribution and measures that may help in prevention. On the one hand, everyone is unique, each individual having his or her own genetic endowment and life experiences.

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Authors
  1. A. S. Henderson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, P.O. Box 12 21 20, 68072, Mannheim, Germany

    Fritz Henn

  2. Belle-Idée, Bâtiment Salève, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève, 2, chemin du Petit-Bel-Air, 1225, Chêne-Bourg/Genève, Switzerland

    Norman Sartorius

  3. Psychiatrische Klinik, Freie Universität Berlin, Eschenallee 3, 14050, Berlin, Germany

    Hanfried Helmchen

  4. Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Ismaninger Straße 22, 81675, München, Germany

    Hans Lauter

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Henderson, A.S. (2001). Central Issues in Psychiatric Epidemiology. In: Henn, F., Sartorius, N., Helmchen, H., Lauter, H. (eds) Contemporary Psychiatry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59519-6_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64007-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-59519-6

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