THE PROGRESSIVE increase in outpatient psychiatry since World War II, the multiplication of locally supported mental health programs, and the recent federal legislation make the need for effective planning of community mental health services urgent. Such planning implies an evaluation of the existing services and the populations they serve as well as a projection of needs for the future. Yolles has noted that:
In the attack on mental illness as a serious national problem of public health, we have for years desired to have data which can trace the services. provided to a citizen when he becomes mentally ill.... This is the kind of information we need in planning the new community mental health services that will be part of every community's health protection within the next few years.
When we move beyond studies of isolated services to a survey of the network of mental health facilities in an