Compiled from presentations given at the 2004 American Psychopathological Association (APPA) annual meeting, "Medical and Psychiatric Comorbidity Over the Course of Life" reviews the comorbidity of mental and chronic physical syndromes in an epidemiological and life course context, offering fresh insights and identifying crucial clues& mdash;gleaned from the overlapping areas or areas of mutual pathogenesis linking disparate realms of knowledge& mdash;to the etiology and nosological distinctiveness of both physical and mental disorders.

Once relatively ignored, the study of lifetime comorbidity has the potential to suggest etiological clues and to advance our ability to prevent secondary disorders by increasing our knowledge about the course and pathology of the primary disease.

The etiologically relevant period, beginning with the earliest causal action and ending with diagnosis, helps us understand this potential and thus is vital to the study of comorbidity. Divided into five main sections (epidemiology, risk factors, mood disorders, emotions and health, and schizophrenia), "Medical and Psychiatric Comorbidity Over the Course of Life" discusses critical aspects of the life course characteristics of the etiologically relevant period: "It can be long," e.g., temperament, a relatively enduring emotional predisposition, may situate an individual more or less permanently at high risk, culminating in irreversibility only after decades of induction. The action of identical genes produces different disorders that may occur at different stages of life, such as the comorbidity of panic disorder and cystitis. "It may involve critical stages," i.e., relatively narrow periods duringdevelopment, such as fetal growth and puberty, to which the action of a given cause is limited. Critical periods of varying durations may exist throughout the course of life. "It may have a cumulative quality to it," in which years or even decades of accumulation are required to reach the point of irreversibility, e.g., the years-long burden of lower class life, or of increased allostatic burden, for the causal nexus to reach sufficiency. "It may involve multiple causes," representing different disciplines and different spheres of action spread throughout the life course.

"Medical and Psychiatric Comorbidity Over the Course of Life" will prove invaluable for practitioners in general and consultation-liaison psychiatry, family practice and internal medicine, and psychosomatics, behavioral medicine, and health psychology.

Title: The Union: past, present, and future: a speech delivered at City Hall, Hartford, on Saturday evening, March 3d, 1860.Author: William W EatonPublisher: Gale, Sabin Americana Description: Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more.Sabin Americana offers an up-close perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late 15th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Covering a span of over 400 years in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions and momentous events of the time. It provides access to documents from an assortment of genres, sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature and more.Now for the first time, these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++SourceLibrary: Huntington LibraryDocumentID: SABCP04518800CollectionID: CTRG03-B887PublicationDate: 18600101SourceBibCitation: Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to AmericaNotes: Caption title. "March, 1860."Collation: 20 p.; 23 cm

This thoroughly revised edition of "The Sociology of Mental Disorders" presents a biosocial model for understanding mental disorders, which integrates the sociological paradigm with current research in the epidemiology of mental disorders and on biological features of mental disorders. It shows the many ways in which macrosocial factors--such as stratification, integration, and culture--and microsocial factors--such as self-concept formation, socialization, and imitation--influence the distribution of mental disorders throughout the population, in combination with psychological and biological factors. The author adopts an epistemological point of view, comparing and contrasting various frameworks for comprehending bizarre forms of deviance that are labeled as mental disorders, including a definition of mental disorder that is purely sociological. He introduces new data and frameworks concerning the process of social stratification and mental disorders, the diffusion of somatoform disorders, mental disorders in the modern world, and the insane society.

Original data from classic research studies in the field are introduced and discussed to illustrate the application of sociological frameworks to the problem of bizarre deviance. Carefully selected first-person accounts of the experience of bizarre deviance add poignancy to the presentation, along with examples of official diagnostic criteria.

This thoroughly revised edition of The Sociology of Mental Disorders presents a biosocial model for understanding mental disorders, which integrates the sociological paradigm with current research in the epidemiology of mental disorders and on biological features of mental disorders. It shows the many ways in which macrosocial factors-such as stratification, integration, and culture-and microsocial factors-such as self-concept formation, socialization, and imitation-influence the distribution of mental disorders throughout the population, in combination with psychological and biological factors. The author adopts an epistemological point of view, comparing and contrasting various frameworks for comprehending bizarre forms of deviance that are labeled as mental disorders, including a definition of mental disorder that is purely sociological. He introduces new data and frameworks concerning the process of social stratification and mental disorders, the diffusion of somatoform disorders, mental disorders in the modern world, and the insane society. Original data from classic research studies in the field are introduced and discussed to illustrate the application of sociological frameworks to the problem of bizarre deviance. Carefully selected first-person accounts of the experience of bizarre deviance add poignancy to the presentation, along with examples of official diagnostic criteria.

Epidemiologic Field Methods in Psychiatry: The NIMH Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program focuses on the methodology employed in the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) Program. The selection first elaborates on the historical context, major objectives, and study design and sampling the household population. Topics include the development of the ECA program, DIS instrument, program design, general issues in sampling community resident populations, household and respondent eligibility, household and respondent selection, weighting, and variance estimation. The manuscript then examines institutional survey and the characteristics, training, and field work of interviewers. Discussions focus on the changing nature of institutions, value of the institutional component, institutions included in institutional stratum, interviewer recruitment and selection, demographic characteristic of interviewers, and field work. The publication ponders on nonresponse and nonresponse bias in the ECA surveys, data preparation, and proxy interview, as well as quality of proxy data, item nonresponse, editing and coding, data entry and data cleaning, understanding nonresponse, and assessment of evidence for nonresponse bias. The selection is a valuable source of information for psychiatrists and readers interested in the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) Program.