Environment and Schizophrenia: Review: The Wider Social Environment and Schizophrenia

摘要

Rates of schizophrenia differ significantly between groups defined at the social level, eg, urban/rural comparisons, neighborhoods, and ethnic minority status. While earlier studies were not able to determine if the social environment influenced the development of schizophrenia (causation) or whether individuals at risk aggregated in adverse social environments (selection), the recent development of multilevel modeling should inform this debate. To date, there are few examples of multilevel analyses in schizophrenia research; however, the small number of studies suggest that there may be a neighborhood social contextual effect that influences rates of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders.