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Dr. Kramer is chief of the Biometry Branch of the Office of Program Planning and Evaluation of the National Institute of Mental Health. His qualifications in the area of mental-health statistics are well-established and he speaks of the subject with authority.
This short book, published by the World Health Organization, is aimed at administrators of mental-health programs. It attempts to survey the organization of mental-health statistics and methods for employing such statistics in different studies. Most particularly, it addresses itself to the problems of planning and evaluating mental-health programs through the analysis of various kinds of data accruing from routine collection of mental-hospital and other psychiatric facility data, population data (census), and health, social, educational, and other agency data. Brief discussions are included concerning the use of psychiatric case registries, morbidity surveys, and attempts at controlled evaluation studies.
The limitations and dangers of misinterpretation of reported statistics are discussed