THE NASSAU SURVEY 



Study of Mental Disorder and Social Maladjustment in a Typical Community- 

 Small Part of the Population Makes Most of the Trouble — 

 Institutional Care Would be an Economy. 



IX EVERY community there are a 

 certain niunber of people who do 

 not fit into the social organization. 

 They cannot earn a li\'ing, or they 

 cannot keep the peace, or they cannot 

 stay sober, or for some similar reason 

 they cam the right to be labeled "cases 

 of social maladjustment" by the man 

 of science. 



How many such cases are there in a 

 typical American community, and to 

 what extent is their maladjustment to 

 be attributed to mental disorders? 



Many communities have attempted 

 to answer these questions, but no at- 

 tempt has been more painstaking than 

 that of the "Nassau Survey," which 

 examined a reprcsentati\'e county of 

 Long Island last simimer. The report 

 of this survey was j^rcpared by the 

 director. Dr. Aaron J. Rosanoff, and 

 is published by the National Com- 

 mittee for Mental Hygiene.^ 



The survey itself, as readers of the 

 Journal of Heredity will recall, was 

 the outgrowth of the work of the 

 Nassau County Association, whose com- 

 mittee on Health and Eugenics under- 

 took, as long ago as 1913, to ascertain 

 what families in the community w^ere 

 supplying mental defectives to the 

 population. In the final and ambitious 

 project carried out last summer, many 

 agencies cooperated: The National 

 Committee for Mental Hygiene, the 

 Rockefeller P'^oundation, the United 

 States Public Health vService, the Eu- 

 genics Record Office, and various New 

 York state organizations and institu- 

 tions. 



Nassau county was considered i)ar- 

 ticularly worth while surveying be- 

 cause "it would be difficult to find aiiv- 



where another county w^hich is not too 

 large or too populous and which, at the 

 same time, as fully represents the 

 widely varied features of American 

 life." "It has many families descended 

 from Colonial and Revolutionary stock; 

 it has an amj^le representation of new^er 

 immigrant stocks, especially Slavonic 

 and Italian; and it has a considerable 

 colored jxipulation." 



INSTANCES OF MALADJfST.MENT SOUGHT 



The question which the sur^'-ey set 

 out to answer was not, as it might have 

 been a few years ago. "What is the 

 ]jercentage of ' insane ' or ' feeble-minded' 

 or 'mentally defective' persons in the 

 community;" but rather 'What in- 

 stances of social maladjustment, suffici- 

 ently marked to ha\-e become the con- 

 cern of public authorities, are, upon 

 investigation, to be attributed mainly 

 or in large measure to mental dis- 

 orders?" Some abnormal cases with- 

 out social maladjustment were natur- 

 ally brought to light as a by-])roduct of 

 the work. Says Dr. RosanolY: 



"Wherever the abnomiality could 

 be established beyond question by 

 medical diagnosis, in spite of the ab- 

 sence of social maladjustment, the 

 case was included in the enumeration. 

 It is significant that over 10^'c oi the 

 abnoimal cases found by us showed no 

 serial maladjustment; and even more 

 significant is the consideration that had 

 it been our deliberate purpose to bring 

 such cases to light, the percentage 

 would undoubtedly have been much 

 higher." 



From the eugenic point of view, how^- 

 ever, such a consideration does not 

 seem to the reviewer to he bevond 



' Survey of Mental Disorders in Nassau County, New York, Jaly-October, 1916. Report 

 prepared by Dr. Aaron J. Rosanoff (director of the Survey). Pp. 125, price 25 cent?. The National 

 Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc., publication No. 9; 50 Union Square, New York, 1917. 



108 



