Urban Challenges to Psychiatry: The Case History of A Response

Abstract

Medical centers often function as though the phrase, service to the belongs only public health and preventive medicine textbooks. The problems of community mental health programs involve defining the characteristics and needs of a given community, and then devising methods for actual delivery of health care services. This edited volume collates research material from a 12-year study of the Columbia-Washington Heights Community Mental Health Project that began 1957. The book describes successful attempts to improve mental health services offered by Columbia University's New York State Psychiatric Institute to the surrounding Washington Heights area. Major objectives of this social psychiatric research were to define a specific urban area in terms of such questions as the prevalence of mental illness and emotional maladjustment, the availability and adequacy of mental health resources, and the attitudes within the community towards mental health and mental health programs. An additional goal was applying