Ontario Health Survey, Mental Health Supplement, 1990

<p>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.</p> <p>The specific objectives for the Supplement are:</p> <ul> <li>to generate reliable, unbiased estimates of the prevalence of mental disorders in the general population;</li> <li>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;</li> <li>to evaluate the linkages between mental disorder and utilization of mental health services; <li>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</li> <li>to examine the geographic and social correlates of mental disorder to provide a rational basis for planning resource allocation.</li> </ul>