ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review a rather large and all-too-inexact body of research on the epidemiology of mental illness, to see what it adds up to and what problems it poses for further research. The stress hypothesis is in some respects the most appealing, in part because it is the most direct. We have not only our own observations as human beings with some compassion for less fortunate people, but an increasingly impressive body of scientific evidence, to show that life is rougher and rougher the lower one's social status. The chapter emphasizes the methodological deficiencies of past studies, for that is essential to any proper evaluation of their substantive results. The epidemiology of mental illness has been a dreadfully dull field of study: again and again, investigators have done little more than see whether or not the same stereotyped set of demographic characteristics correlate with some index of mental disorder.
