THE CHALLENGE OF CREATING THOUGHTFUL RESEARCH AGENDAS

This article is an affirmative rejoinder to a recent editorial calling for revitalizing psychiatric research and education. It reviews the s hortcomings of our present knowledge- and research-base using the stat e of child psychiatry as an exemplar. It concludes that we, as a speci alty must be cautious in setting a course for a research agenda in the new millenium and posits that the most informative research and inter vention will occur by using multiple measures and sources of informati on. As understanding of patients and their problems in development and in context grows, intervention research that will be useful, timely, and cost-effective must include cross-discipline teams of researchers and practitioners who will speak to these complexities. Copyright (C) 1998 by W.B. Saunders Company.