Counting children at risk: exploring a method to estimate the number of children exposed to parental mental illness using adult health survey data.

Children exposed to parental psychiatric disorders have an increased risk of several psychiatric disorders, impaired development, behavioural problems, injuries, physical illness and mortality. Even though this high-risk group has been shown to benefit from health promotion and preventive interventions, estimates of the size of the population at risk are not available. Estimating the number of exposed children using adult survey data will likely generate valuable information for health policy, planning, and advocacy.