Social risk factors in schizophrenia

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Social Epidemiology

Background:

• Schizophrenia prevalence is associated with social factors such as socioeconomic status, marital status, and ethnicity.
• Research on social factors and schizophrenia employs individual-level and aggregate-level strategies.
• The social selection hypothesis is favored over social causation for explaining these associations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the relationship between social factors and schizophrenia.
• To investigate the prevalence and incidence of schizophrenia in relation to social indicators.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing investigations on social factors and schizophrenia.
• Ecological study design examining the incidence of treated schizophrenic disorders in Mannheim.

Main Results:

• Social factors including low socioeconomic status, single status, and ethnic group are significantly associated with schizophrenia prevalence.
• The study supports the social selection hypothesis, indicating individuals with schizophrenia may move to lower socioeconomic strata.

Conclusions:

• The findings support the social selection hypothesis for schizophrenia.
• Social factors are important correlates of schizophrenia, but causation is likely not directly from social environment to illness onset.