[Linguistic distance and psychosis in ethnic minorities]

Ethnic minorities in the Netherlands face an excess psychosis risk, and understanding of causality remains limited. Linguistic disadvantage and other indicators of societal exclusion might play a role, and offer potential targets for public health interventions.

To establish the contribution of linguistic disadvantage, indicators of social distance and perceived discrimination to the increased risk of psychoses in migrants and ethnic minorities.

We used the Dutch data from an international case-control study into psychotic disorders (the EU-GEI study). A first episode of psychosis was our outcome variable, and we used well-defined data on established confounders (e.g. age and sex) and indicators of ethnicity, social distance, linguistic disadvantage and perceived discrimination as our predictor variables.

Ethnic minorities face an increased psychosis risk. This appears to be the case for both first- and second- generation migrants and so-called ‘Western’ and non-Western migrants. Though confounders and social distance appear to contribute, linguistic disadvantage appears to play a role in the excess psychosis risk in first-generation migrants.

Reducing the social consequences of linguistic disadvantage or social distance might be a starting point for concrete public health interventions aimed at preventing the increased psychosis risk faced by first-generation migrants.