Psychiatric epidemiology

Psychiatric epidemiology is a field which studies the causes (etiology) of mental

disorders in society, as well as conceptualization and prevalence of mental
illness. It is a subfield of the more general epidemiology. It has roots in
sociological studies of the early 20th century. However, while sociological
exposures are still widely studied in psychiatric epidemiology, the field has since
expanded to the study of a wide area of environmental risk factors, such as major
life events, as well as genetic exposures. Increasingly neuroscientific techniques
like MRI are used to explore the mechanisms behind how exposures to risk factors
may impact psychological problems and explore the neuroanatomical substrate
underlying psychiatric disorders
Sociological studies of the early 20th century can be regarded as predecessors of
today's psychiatric epidemiology.[1]:6 These studies investigated for instance how
suicide rates differ between Protestant and Catholic countries or how the risk of
suffering from schizophrenia is increased in neighborhood characterized with high
levels of social isolation. After World War 2 researchers began using community
surveys to assess psychological problems

Many different instruments are used to assess mental disorders in epidemiological

studies depending on the age of the participants, available recourses and other
considerations. Studies featuring adolescents and adults often use structured
interviewing, a technique in which a series of questions is administered by
interviewers to determine whether an individual is disordered or nondisordered.
Alternatively, questionnaire are used, which can be administered more easily. In
epidemiological studies featuring children, psychopathology is often assessed using
parent report, however, multi-informant approaches, e.g. the simultaneous use of
parent, teachers and self-report, is popular as weLL.