In this paper we examine the first cross cultural validity criterion using literature reviews to determine the extent to which the prevalence rates of CD and ODD vary across cultures as ascertained in population or school based samples. We exclude from our review the few studies which used solely the ICD-10 classification of psychiatric disorders in order to reduce variability across studies that could be due to case definition. Also, the main purpose of the paper is to inform the future DSM-V psychiatric classification. We also examine the prevalence rates of CD and ODD across cultures or ethnicities and use meta -regression analyzes to determine the methodological and cross cultural factors associated with the heterogeneity of the prevalence estimates. Prior research has found that prevalence estimates of most children psychiatric disorders as assessed in population-based studies vary dramatically depending on the measure or diagnostic criteria [24, 55]. For example, concerns about the high rates of false positives in many population-based studies using DSM-III and DSM-III-R led to the addition of a clinical significance criterion for most specific disorders of DSM-IV
