Ontario Health Survey, Mental Health Supplement, 1990

The Mental Health Supplement was designed to provide a statistical database about the epidemiology of mental disorder in the residential population of Ontario residents. The overall purpose of the survey fall into two domains: scientific and administrative. Data collected in the survey are intended to improve our understanding about the nature of mental disorder and to provide a rational basis for developing programs and policies to both prevent and treat mental disorder more effectively. The specific objectives for the Supplement are: to generate reliable, unbiased estimates of the prevalence of mental disorders in the general population; to compare the levels of severity among different categories of mental disorder by investigating the extent of overlap among disorders and their strengths of association with disability; to evaluate the linkages between mental disorder and utilization of mental health services; to evaluate the relationship between mental disorder and hypothesized risk factors for the purpose of identifying points of leverage to reduce levels of disorder and disability; and to examine the geographic and social correlates of mental disorder to provide a rational basis for planning resource allocation.