Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T20:23:30.614Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

National Statistics in the Epidemiology of Mental Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

Eileen M. Brooke
Eileen M. Brooke*
Affiliation:
General Register Office, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For a long time epidemiology was a term associated with the study of outbreaks of disease which were sudden and large-scale. The attempt to find common causative agents to which the majority of cases could be attributed has provoked a literature worthy to rank with some of the best detective fiction. So many of the guilty agents have now been either liquidated or rendered impotent that infectious illnesses have ceased to occupy the centre of the public health stage, and have yielded place, as objects of concern, to such chronic diseases as cancer, rheumatism, heart disease and the schizophrenias. These diseases do not generally show explosive outbreaks, although mental disorders have been known to behave in this way, as witness the outbreaks of Dancing Mania which originated in Italy in the thirteenth century. All this has led to a more exact concept of epidemiology as “the study of the distribution of a disease or condition in a population and of the factors that influence this distribution” (Lilienfeld (1)).

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 105 , Issue 441 , October 1959 , pp. 893 - 908
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1959 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Lilienfeld, A., “Epidemiological Methods and Influences in Studies of Noninfectious Diseases”, United States Public Health Journal, 1957, 72, 1. January.Google Scholar
2. Gordon, J. E., O'Rourke, E., Richardson, F. L. W., and Lindemann, E., “The Biological and Social Sciences in an Epidemiology of Mental Disorder”, Amer. J. med. Sci., 1952, 223, 316–343. March.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3a. Registrar General, Statistical Review of England and Wales, 1957. Part II. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
3b. Idem, ibid., 1956. Part III. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
4. Ministry of Health Annual Report, Appendix Table II, Part IV, 1957.Google Scholar
5. Registrar General, Statistical Review of England and Wales, 1957. Part I.Google Scholar
6. United Nations, Demographic Yearbook, 1957.Google Scholar
7. Home Office Criminal Statistics. England and Wales, 1957. (Chap. VIII. I. Comparative Tables 1930–57; Table A.)Google Scholar
8. Logan, W. P. D., and Cushion, A. A., “Morbidity Statistics from General Practice.” Vol. I. General Register Office, Studies on Medical and Population Subjects. 14. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
9. Idem and Brooke, Eileen M., “The Survey of Sickness, 1943 to 1952. General Register Office. Studies on Medical and Population Subjects. 12”. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
10. Lemkau, P., “The Epidemiological Study of Mental Illnesses and Mental Health”, Amer. J. Psychiat., 1955, 111, 801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. Manual of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Injuries, and Causes of Death, 1957. Geneva: W.H.O. Google Scholar
12. Dunham, H. Warren, “Methodology in Social Investigations of Mental Disorders”, Int. J. Psych. III, 1957, 1. Summer.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.