Epidemiologic data and planning mental health services. A tale of two surveys.

The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program (ECA) is the most comprehensive community and institutionalized epidemiologic data base currently available for mental health service planning. In this report, the authors compare the ECA with a previous community survey used to plan mental health services--the Stirling County Study--in terms of conceptual framework, research design, results and implementation of service planning. Familiarity with the Stirling County Study can inform users of ECA data regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the ECA data for health services research.