The construction of community indexes of mental health and social and mental well-being and their application to New York City

The paper provides a rationale and the development steps for construction of community level measures of the “well-being” of persons with mental illness and the “social and mental well-being” of a community as a whole. Both indexes are based on a conceptual model that links mental health outcomes to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evaluation and program planning 2000-08, Vol.23 (3), p.315-327
Main Authors: Siegel, Carole, Laska, Eugene, Haugland, Gary, O’Neill, Dave, Cohen, Neal, Lesser, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Community Research
Economic Conditions
Index
Indexes (Measures)
Indicators
Mental Health
Mental Illness
Monitoring
Needs Assessment
New York City, New York
Social and mental well-being
Social Conditions
Social Support
Well Being
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Summary:The paper provides a rationale and the development steps for construction of community level measures of the “well-being” of persons with mental illness and the “social and mental well-being” of a community as a whole. Both indexes are based on a conceptual model that links mental health outcomes to domains of influence of socio-economic conditions, needs, and supports. Factors are given that describe each domain and a method is suggested to select and assign importance weights to indicators that describe the factors. A mathematical methodology is provided to combine the selected indicators into a single index value. The aggregation rule is based on desirable principles of an index, on aggregated domain values and on input/output ratios that link domains: needs to socio-economic conditions, supports to needs and outcomes to supports. The application of the method to New York City is described. For each index, its values, domain values and input/output ratios are reported for 1991–1996
ISSN:0149-7189
DOI:10.1016/S0149-7189(00)00017-3