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Epidemiology as a Basis for the Conception and Planning of Services

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Facilitating Pathways

Abstract

Epidemiological information is needed for developing public policies to improve children’s mental health. (For reasons of brevity we will use “child” to include “adolescent” throughout the text.) In particular, epidemiological research could provide answers to questions such as:

  1. 1.

    How many children in the community have mental health problems;

  2. 2.

    How many children make use of mental health services;

  3. 3.

    What is the distribution of mental health problems and service use across age, sex, and ethnic groups and across levels of socio-economic status, neighborhood disadvantage, and urbanization;

  4. 4.

    Are there historical trends in frequency of child mental health problems;

  5. 5.

    What is the developmental course of mental health problems from childhood into adulthood;

  6. 6.

    What etiological factors can be determined to inform the design of prevention and treatment programs;

  7. 7.

    How cost-effective are child mental health services; and

  8. 8.

    What are the outcomes for children who received services?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Erasmus University Medical Center Sophia Children’s Hospitall, Dr. Molewaterplein 60, 3015 GJ, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Frank C. Verhulst MD (Prof.)

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  1. Frank C. Verhulst MD
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und -psychotherapie, Klinikum der Philipps-Universität Marburg, Hans-Sachs-Str. 4 und 6, 35033, Marburg, Germany

    Helmut Remschmidt

  2. Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, 641 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Myron L. Belfer MD, MPH

  3. Douglas House Developmental Psychiatry, Cambridge University, 18b Trumpington Road, Cambridge, CB2 2AH, UK

    Ian Goodyer MD

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Verhulst, F.C. (2004). Epidemiology as a Basis for the Conception and Planning of Services. In: Remschmidt, H., Belfer, M.L., Goodyer, I. (eds) Facilitating Pathways. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18611-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18611-0_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-62197-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-18611-0

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