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 shortcomings of our present knowledge- and research-base using the state of child psychiatry as an exemplar. It concludes that we, as a specialty, must be cautious in setting a course for a research agenda in the new millenium and posits that the most informative research and intervention will occur by using multiple measures and sources of information. 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.