Community mental health centers and the decreasing use of state mental hospitals.

To test the success of the Community Mental Health Centers Program goal of reducing state hospital utilization, changes in state mental hospital resident and admission rates were calculated, using 16 states, for counties wholly within or outside of catchment areas served by operating, federally funded community mental health centers. There was no consistent relationship between the opening of centers and changes in state hospital resident rates. However, counties with centers tended to decrease more (or increase less) in state hospital admission rates than areas without centers.