Impact of Mental Health Research in Sociology: Nearly Four Decades of Scholarship (1975–2011)

Abstract

This article looks back at a period before the formation of the Section of the Sociology of Mental Health and traces the impact and course of mental health research in select sociology publications through that period until the first issue of the journal published last year. The formation of the section 20 years ago was especially prescient in light of the Center for Disease Control's assessment that mental health is among the top ten public health challenges we will face in the 21st century, a list that followed just less than a decade later. Koplan and Fleming identified those ten challenges, and noted the importance of addressing the 'impact of mental health' as the 'second leading cause of disability and premature mortality in the United States....' The rise in the impact of social science research into the social causes and consequences of mental health problems, perhaps then, should not be so surprising. The economy of scholarship is much like that any—scholarly productivity is in response to demand and lead by innovation, both of which should figure prominently in the fields scholarly outlets. But before turning to evidence of that impact in the published literature, a brief nod is given lo the early foundations followed by the early history of the formation of the section. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)