Schizophrenia in ethnic minority groups

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7342.916

BMJ 2002;324:916 ( 13 April )

Letters

Schizophrenia in ethnic minority groups

Selection bias in prevalence data is difficult to rule out

Authors' reply

Selection bias in prevalence data is difficult to rule out

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ To sociologists, Boydell et al's findings are counterintuitive.¹ One would expect economic deprivation (at neighbourhoodlevel) to be a decisive factor for an increased incidence of mentalillness. But it is surprising to learn that the lower the proportionof non-white ethnic minorities in a local area the higher theincidence of schizophrenia in those minorities (controlled foreconomicdeprivation).

As an explanatory hypothesis the authors point to overt discrimination and institutionalised racism as sources of stress,which can be alleviated by people making use of social capitalwithin the ethnic group. This hypothesis surely necessitates furthertesting and debate. It is a pity that non-white ethnic minoritygroups had to be considered as one homogeneous group on an aggregatelevel. The social networks and levels of social cohesion may bedifferent for different ethnic groups, and follow up researchshould be able to distinguishthese.

Boydell et . . . [Full text of this article]

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Incidence of schizophrenia in ethnic minorities in London: ecological study into interactions with environment: J Boydell, J van Os, K McKenzie, J Allardyce, R Goel, R G McCreadie, and R M Murray
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