Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

Abstract From a public health perspective, epidemiologists focus on a number of important questions about diseases, including these: How important is a particular disease? Which group in the population is at highest risk for specific diseases? Are there characteristics of certain environments that increase the risk of particular diseases? What are the most effective methods of preventing or controlling the spread of specific diseases? Encompassed within these central questions are numerous other issues related to prevalence (i.e., how many people have a particular disease at any one time), incidence (i.e., how many new cases of this disease will occur during a defined period), and overall burden to society in terms of mortality, morbidity, economic costs, functional impairments, and need for treatment.