Citation

Siegel C, Laska E, Haugland G, O'Neill D, Cohen N, Lesser M. Eval. Program Plann. 2000; 23(3): 315-327.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/S0149-7189(00)00017-3

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

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