Contrasting procedures for empirical support of traditional and Population-Based mental health services

Abstract

The emergence of population-based services is occurring simultaneous with a growing expectation that psychological services be justified by empirical evidence that they are effective in improving the mental health of children and adolescents. This paper describes fundamental conflicts that exist when existing standards for empirical support are generalized to population-based mental health services. While evidence of treatment effectiveness must be required of population-based services as well as traditional mental health services, the different service delivery strategies demand the development of different evaluation strategies to meet this requirement. Recommendations are made for adjusting procedures for empirical support so that these also accommodate population-based service delivery models. The continued development of population-based service models and evaluation procedures suitable for these models will demand collaborative efforts from those expert in treatment and those expert in evaluation. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.