Task force report: National Council of Community Mental Health Centers Task Force on Environmental Assessment.

This paper discusses the background and aims of the National Council of Community Mental Health Centers (NCCMHC) Task Force on Environmental Assessment and introduces the next four papers in this issue, which are products of the Task Force's work. The charge of the Task Force was to show the relationship between environmental variables and behavioral outcomes for the field of prevention of mental illness; to cite directions in research in environmental assessment with application to the field of prevention of mental illness; to review and evaluate the tools and methods used to assess environments, with a focus on social environments; and to work toward the development of assessment tools relevant to the field of mental health.