Introduction 9
Force to draft the diagnostic criteria and ac companying text. This effort was supported by
a team of APA Division of Research staff an d developed through a network of text coor-
dinators from each work group. The preparation of the text was coordinated by the text
editor, working in close collaboration with th e work groups and under the direction of the
task force chairs. The Scientific Review Comm ittee (SRC) was established to provide a sci-
entific peer review process that was external to that of the work groups. The SRC chair,
vice-chair, and six committee members were charged with reviewing the degree to which
the proposed changes from DSM-IV could be  supported with scientific evidence. Each
proposal for diagnostic revi sion required a memorandum of evidence for change pre-
pared by the work group and accompanied by a summary of supportive data organized
around validators for the proposed diagnostic criteria (i.e., antecedent validators such as
familial aggregation, concurrent validators such as biological markers, and prospective
validators such as response to  treatment or course of illness). The submissions were re-
viewed by the SRC and scored according to the strength of the supportive scientific data.
Other justifications for change, such as those arising from clinical experience or need or
from a conceptual reframing of diagnostic ca tegories, were generall y seen as outside the
purview of the SRC. The reviewers’ scores, wh ich varied substantially across the different
proposals, and an accompanying brief commen tary were then returned to the APA Board
of Trustees and the work groups  for consideration and response.
The Clinical and Public Health Committee (CPH C), composed of a chair, vice-chair, and
six members, was appointed to consider additi onal clinical utility, public health, and log-