Use of mental health services by community-resident adults with DSM-IV anxiety and mood disorders in a violence-prone area: São Paulo, brazil.

•Information comes from adult residents of an urban, violence-prone, area.•In this area, experience of traumatic events is associated with an increased rate of depression and comorbid depression and anxiety, but not with anxiety alone.•Mental health services are underused; use is associated with diagnosis, but not directly with experience of traumatic events.•Demographically, mental health service use is greater among persons over age 30, White, who have increased social support and lower resilience, living in lower homicide rate areas.•Diagnostically, only 10% of persons with anxiety, 22% with depression only, and 34% with comorbid depression and anxiety use mental health services.•The primary mental health care providers are general practitioners, psychiatrists, and psychologists; additional mental health treatment resources are needed.