The Ecological Study of Mental Disorders
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5620699 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Stuart A Queen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1940 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 201 |
| Publication date | 1940-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2083635 |
| OpenAlex | W2333773906 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
M EMBERS of the American Sociological Society are doubtless familiar in a general way with the ecological study of mental disorders in Chicago. Those interested in the relations between psychiatry and sociology have, of course, read R. E. L. Faris and H. Warren Dunham's book.' Hence they know that Providence data have been assembled and analyzed as a partial check on the Chicago findings. Some sociologists have seen Green's study of persons admitted to the state hospital in Cleveland;2 and some know about the cooperative study sponsored by the Mid-West Sociological Society which covered six cities-Milwaukee, Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis, Peoria, and Rockford. As noted, the Chicago, Providence, and Cleveland studies have been published. The St. Louis study has been presented by William L. J. Dee as a master's thesis at Washington University.' Data from the other cities are not yet available. To say that these several studies involve direct imitation of the work done by Faris and Dunham is to reflect no discredit on anyone. As a matter of fact, the Mid-West cooperative project was undertaken in response to a suggestion of E. W. Burgess that the Chicago findings needed to be checked by similar research in other cities. Unfortunately, the Mid-West project is not yet finished; hence this paper must also be incomplete. It should not be necessary here to discuss the nature of ecological studies other than to say that for practical purposes they consist in the investigation of spatial distribution of social groups, of culture traits and complexes, of human types, of various factors presumably related thereto, and processes through which patterns develop and change. These studies commonly rest on certain assumptions, e.g., that locus and status are so related that each is indicative of the other; that change of status accompanies change of locus; that both locus and status are determined (not finally, but constantly) by a natural, competitive process, displayed through mobility or movement. With specific reference to urbanism, it is assumed that various parts of a city have characteristic features-physical, demographic, cultural, etc. It is also assumed that a city, taken as a whole, has a character
Biology · Geography · Community Health and Development · Ecology · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Mental Health Research Topics · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 1953 - 2006 (54) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |