In the spring of 1962, a series of alarming headlines greeted American newspaper readers. From “New York Living for Nuts Only” and “One in Five Here Mentally Fit” to “Scratch a New Yorker, and What Do You Find?” and “City Gets Mental Test, Results are Real Crazy,” the stories highlighted the shocking and, to some, incredible statistics that fewer than one in five (18.5%) Manhattanites had good mental health. Approximately a quarter of them had such bad mental health that they were effectively incapacitated, often unable to work or function socially. The headlines were gleaned from Mental Health in the Metropolis (1962), the first major output of the Midtown Manhattan Study, a large-scale, interdisciplinary project that surveyed the mental health of 1660 white Upper East Side residents between the ages of 20 and 59. One of the most significant social psychiatry projects to emerge following the Second World War, the Midtown Manhattan Study endeavored to “test the general hypothesis that biosocial and sociocultural factors leave imprints on mental health which are discernible when viewed from the panoramic perspective provided by a large population.” Despite initial media and academic interest, however, the Midtown Manhattan Study’s findings were soon forgotten, as American psychiatry turned its focus to individual—rather than population—psychopathology, and turned to the brain—rather than the environment—for explanations. Relying on archival sources, contemporary medical and social scientific literature, and oral history interviews, this article explains why the Midtown Manhattan Study failed to become more influential, concluding that its emphasis on the role of social isolation and poverty in mental illness should be taken more seriously today.

1962 年春天，一系列令人震惊的头条新闻向美国报纸读者致意。从“只为坚果而生活的纽约”和“这里五分之一的心理健康”到“抓一个纽约人，你发现了什么？” 和“城市进行了心理测试，结果真的很疯狂”，这些故事突出了令人震惊且对某些人来说令人难以置信的统计数据，即不到五分之一 (18.5%) 的曼哈顿人拥有良好的心理健康。他们中大约有四分之一的人心理健康状况很差，以至于他们实际上丧失了行为能力，通常无法工作或参与社交活动。头条新闻来自大都会的心理健康（1962 年），曼哈顿中城研究的第一个主要成果，这是一个大型跨学科项目，调查了 1660 名 20 至 59 岁的上东区白人居民的心理健康状况。最重要的社会精神病学项目之一第二次世界大战后出现的曼哈顿中城研究致力于“检验生物社会和社会文化因素对心理健康留下印记的一般假设，当从大量人口提供的全景角度来看时，这些印记是可辨别的。” 然而，尽管最初的媒体和学术兴趣，曼哈顿中城研究的发现很快就被遗忘了，因为美国精神病学将重点转向个体——而不是人群——精神病理学，并转向大脑——而不是环境——寻求解释。依托档案资源，