Locus of state psychiatric hospitals in the United States, 1960-1980

The community mental health movement of the mid-1960s included a novel belief that psychiatric hospitals should be located near population centers. The author studied the extent to which recent site configurations of state psychiatric hospitals have reflected that conceptual change. In the period 1960-1980, a large number of rural state hospitals closed; at the same time a smaller number of state hospitals were opened. Although one set of states moved in the direction of an urbanized setting concept, another set of states held firm in its devotion to the rural hospital tradition.