Risk of Schizophrenia Diagnosis in Urban Environments 2.5x Greater

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In a meta-analysis of “all available evidence,” researchers from London and Denmark re-established the strong link between urbanicity and schizophrenia diagnoses, adding a positive linear relationship of the risk attributable to environment, from least to most urban. The study, published online by the Schizophrenia Bulletin, found that the same effect when studies measuring the risk for nonaffective psychosis were included.

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Vassos, E., Pedersen, C., et al; Meta-Analysis of the Association of Urbanicity With Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin (2012) doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbs096 First published online: September 26, 2012

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

8 COMMENTS

    • I came back the next day. I’d REALLY like some help with this.

      If we are always hearing how minorities and urban dwelling people are more likely to have this label slapped on them, and we are always reading the un-cited 1% claim, how can the 1% claim hold true?

      And where did the 1% claim come from in the first place?

      Given I’ve spent years reading thousands of articles and material, I’m probably tilting at windmills even asking. YOU don’t know either, do you?

      Kermit?

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      • I was thinking this very thing when I posted the article, so thanks for noting it. It has been my opinion that the “consistent 1%” claim was spurious, and this is among the data that suggest it is true.

        I don’t happen to know where it originated, just that it’s been bandied about as long as I’ve been reading this stuff. I’ll look into it.

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        • “I don’t happen to know where it originated, just that it’s been bandied about as long as I’ve been reading this stuff.”

          Exactly. I need to EMBRACE MY CONFIDENCE.

          They led me to believe I could never trust my mind, then they led me to believe I was brain diseased, then they led me to believe I could kill myself or commit a massacre. Then they led me to believe I’d shouldn’t have children. Then they led me to believe I should trust them and take their brain poisons for life.

          Obviously, escaping from this horrible tyranny required faith in myself.

          So, when I question the 1% figure, just another piece of detritus created by the same quacks who led me to believe all the other more pertinent and horrible things, I should TRUST MY OWN INSTINCT that I should ask questions.

          Nobody knows. It’s just a “meme”, it’s just repeated and repeated and repeated, it’s a bumper sticker.

          If I can read far and wide, and never happen upon its origin, and you can too, and never happen upon its origin… we need to know how the quacks came up with this crap.

          As usual, as predictable, you can set your watch, to the MINDLESS, UNSOPHISTICATED, “thought” of the brain rapists.

          They repeat this crap, uncited, and they don’t know where the (censored) it came from.

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    • Regarding “why do these quacks…? ”
      The psychiatrists (quacks) are being paid. That is why they come up with numbers. The psychiatrists (quacks) are doing the job they are paid for, to control those who are not obeying orders. It is as simple as that.

      You have a problem with the 1% number, no one is going to pay you for your opinion , no one else cares what the facts are. The psychiatrists invent the facts, as absolute power does.

      People today love to say how civilized psychiatry is today compared to the past when they had to use chains to control the M.I..
      I have a problem with this pride, as in the past the rate of serious M.I. was maybe 1 in 300, not todays 1 in 17.
      http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1ANYDIS_ADULT.shtml

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  1. To any non psychiatry survivors out there?

    Can how imagine how under siege you’d feel if hundreds of thousands of researchers got up every morning, went to work with blank check, with express aim of proving you are brain diseased and biologically inferior?

    And if the government believed their bullshit and detained you in solitary confinement and raped for brain with brain altering drugs on the basis of this belief system?

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