This article was posted June 26, 2001. The Workgroup on Mental Disorders Prevention Research of the National Advisory Mental Health Council was charged by the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to examine the NIMH research portfolio on the prevention of mental disorders, identify research gaps and opportunities, and indicate priorities for future research on prevention. The Workgroup believes that the field is ready to initiate a 3rd generation of prevention research building on prior research accomplishments and integrating these with advances in the biomedical, behavioral, and cognitive sciences. The group examined the scope and balance of research in the current NIMH portfolio and found that it focused on a few disorders, and then only on a few approaches toward their prevention. Prevention research has had a promising beginning, and risk factor, risk process, and intervention research have all been productive in some areas. But more could be done. The Workgroup's 14 recommendations, included in this article, provide strategic directions for pre-intervention, intervention, and services research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)