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From the Prevalence Estimates of Mental Illness and Need for Services (PEMINS) Study

In 1992, the federal Center for Substance Abuse treatment funded a household survey called the Washington State Needs Assessment Household Survey (WANAHS). Between 1993 and 1994, interviewers from Washington State University spoke at length with 7001 adults from across Washington State regarding their physical and mental health status, alcohol and drug use and abuse, and social demographic characteristics.

The study used a stratified sampling design to include approximately equal numbers of interviews with African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, and non-Hispanic Whites. Additional samples of people living below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), rural residents, and women were interviewed, to add coverage of these important, but sometimes overlooked, populations.

Considerable efforts were made to encourage people to participate in the interview, leading to a response rate of 72% (eligible households producing a completed interview), with an 85% cooperation rate (eligible adults actually contacted completing a survey). The interview was conducted in seven different languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Mon-Khmer, Vietnamese and Chinese).

The WANAHS survey sections on mental illness provide the foundation for the Prevalence Estimates of Mental Illness and Need for Services (PEMINS) study. The PEMINS study is the first time that prevalences of specified mental disorders have been developed from a survey of Washington State residents. The study also represents the first time that estimates of need for mental health services have been generated for Washington State based substantially on local data, rather than relying exclusively upon data from national surveys.

The WANAHS survey did not cover homeless, group quarters, or institutionalized populations. It also did not include estimates of dementia and other mental diseases of aging populations. Adjustments to reflect those populations were added using data from a national study, the Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) study, which did include them.

The detailed technical report from the PEMINS study can be found in Holzer et al.(1999). This paper is a policy-focused summary that draws out some of the salient comparisons from the detailed study and discusses possible uses for them.

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