Home > NREPP Glossary

NREPP Glossary

The following definitions have been drawn from numerous sources and are tailored specifically for content on the NREPP Web site. The terms defined here may have slightly different meanings in other settings.

Mental health promotion

Attempts to (a) encourage and increase protective factors and healthy behaviors that can help prevent the onset of a diagnosable mental disorder and (b) reduce risk factors that can lead to the development of a mental disorder.

Mental health treatment

Assistance to individuals for existing mental health conditions or disorders.

Meta-analysis

A statistical procedure for combining the results of two or more studies on the same topic.

Missing data

Data or information that researchers intended to collect during a study that was not actually collected or was collected incompletely. Missing data may occur, for example, when survey respondents do not answer all questions in a survey, or when the researchers "throw out" or exclude survey questions because the responses do not meet validation checks. Missing data can threaten the validity and reliability of a study if steps are not taken to compensate for or "impute" (replace with calculated data) the missing information. Missing data are one of the six NREPP criteria used to rate Quality of Research.