Abstract
Epidemiology in mental health focuses on assessing the amount and distribution of mental disorders in the population. Such information provides the means for improving prevention and treatment and serves as a basis for administrative planning.1 The epidemiologist also examines associations between population characteristics and disorders that may clarify the origins of mental disorders or aid in identifying homogeneous groups of patients. This chapter will describe epidemiological findings in schizophrenia that delineate the extent of the problem and provide information relevant to etiology and pathogenesis from an epidemiological perspective.
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Recommended ReadingS
Babigian, H. M. Schizophrenia: Epidemiology. In: Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry, Vol. 3, Kaplan, H. I., Freedman, A. M., and Sadock, B. J. (eds.). Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1980.
Report of the Task Panel on Nature and Scope of the Problems. Report of the President’s Commission on Mental Health, Vol. 2, 1978, 1–138.
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© 1981 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Strauss, J.S., Carpenter, W.T. (1981). The Extent of the Problem. In: Schizophrenia. Critical Issues in Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0327-3_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0327-3_6
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