Social networks: A link between psychiatric epidemiology and community mental health

This paper examines the concept of social network as a mediating construct linking psychiatric epidemiology and community mental health. A selective review of studies investigating the structural and interactional features of the social networks of psychiatrically impaired persons is presented and the implications of their results are discussed. It is concluded that social networks provide a unifying framework potentially capable of linking empirical research with clinical practice.This work is supported in part by grant #AA03506-04 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.