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Implications for Research and Policy

Darrel A. Regier, MD, MPH; Charles T. Kaelber, MD, DrPH; Donald S. Rae, MA; Mary E. Farmer, MD, MPH; Barbel Knauper, PhD; Ronald C. Kessler, PhD; Grayson S. Norquist, MD, MSPH

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1998;55:109-115.

During the past 2 decades, psychiatric epidemiological studies have contributed a rapidly growing body of scientific knowledge on the scope and risk factors associated with mental disorders in communities. Technological advances in diagnostic criteria specificity and community case-identification interview methods, which made such progress feasible, now face new challenges. Standardized methods are needed to reduce apparent discrepancies in prevalence rates between similar population surveys and to differentiate clinically important disorders in need of treatment from less severe syndromes. Reports of some significant differences in mental disorder rates from 2 large community surveys conducted in the United States—the Epidemiologic Catchment Area study and the National Comorbidity Survey—provide the basis for examining the stability of methods in this field. We discuss the health policy implications of discrepant and/or high prevalence rates for determining treatment need in the context of managed care definitions of "medical necessity."

From the office of the Associate Director for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Md (Dr Regier); the Division of Intervention and Services Research, NIMH, NIH (Drs Kaelber and Norquist and Mr Rae), and the Division of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience Research, NIMH, NIH (Dr Farmer), Rockville, Md; the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Drs Knauper and Kessler); and the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard University Medical School, Boston, Mass (Dr Kessler).

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