SUMMARYThis article (Part 11) introduces a joint project being carried out at the Institute of Social Medicine, Rio de Janeiro, and the United Medical and Dental Schools, Guy's Hospital, London, concerning the epidemiology of the elderly population of Rio de Janeiro. The methodology used and the stages of the community survey are presented. The sampling methods and the steps of the enumerator process are detailed, and the design of the reliability and validity study of mental health is also presented. The main purpose of this article is to present the methodological approach.KEY woms-Epidemiology, survey methodology, mental health, Brazil, old age.As a consequence of the growth in the elderly population in Brazil, described in Part 1, researchers are beginning to carry out epidemiological surveys to identify the health and social care needs of this group (Almeida Filho et al., 1984; Blay et al., 1989;Ramos et al., 1987). The objective of this article is to describe the methodology adopted to evaluate physical and mental health, social and economic conditions and the ability of the population over 60 years old to carry out activities of daily living. The project is a collaborative one between the Third Age Epidemiology Programme of the Institute of Social Medicine at the University of Rio de Janeiro and the Section of Psychogeriatrics at the United Medical and Dental Schools at Guy's Hospital, London. The survey, which will be concluded by the time of this publication, used a multidimensional questionnaire, a reference manual and coding book developed specifically for the project (Veras et al., 1988). This article will discuss the demographic and socioeconomic indicators used to define the population from which the sample was drawn, the difficulties encountered in the enumeration process in a large urban area such as Rio de Janeiro, the fieldwork process, and the strategy adopted to develop the mental health section of the schedule.
QUESTIONNAIRE USEDFor this study a multidimensional questionnaire was developed in order to highlight the priorities and needs of the elderly population. The choice of instrument was determined by the need to cover many aspects of the elderly people's lives in order that Brazilian health authorities could set broad priorities for planning for this population.We adopted the procedure suggested by Fillenbaum (1984) that before embarking on the develop-