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.[1]: 6 

Reviews on psychiatric epidemiology as a main subject were published by Tohen et al. in 2006,[2] Kessler in 2007,[3] and Juul & Nemeroff in 2012.[4]

  1. ^ Susser E, Schwartz S, Morabia A, Bromet EJ. Psychiatric Epidemiology: Searching for the Causes of Mental Disorders. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
  2. ^ Tohen, M.; Bromet, E.; Murphy, J. M.; Tsuang, M. T. (2000). "Psychiatric epidemiology". Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 8 (3): 111–125. doi:10.1080/hrp_8.3.111. ISSN 1067-3229. PMID 10973936. S2CID 220570284.
  3. ^ Kessler, Ronald C. (2007). "Psychiatric epidemiology: challenges and opportunities". International Review of Psychiatry. 19 (5): 509–521. doi:10.1080/09540260701564914. ISSN 0954-0261. PMC 2140947. PMID 17896231.
  4. ^ Juul, Sarah H.; Nemeroff, Charles B. (2012). "Psychiatric epidemiology". Neurobiology of Psychiatric Disorders. Handbook of Clinical Neurology. Vol. 106. pp. 167–189. doi:10.1016/B978-0-444-52002-9.00010-3. ISBN 9780444520029. ISSN 0072-9752. PMID 22608621.