A new study in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that where a person lives may partly explain longstanding racial disparities in the diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). Researchers found that social and environmental conditions at the neighborhood level (such as economic hardship, housing instability, and limited access to healthcare) accounted for a meaningful portion of the gap in SSD symptom prevalence between Black and white Americans.
Deirdre Anglin and Natalie Bareis, with an international team of coauthors, using data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, found that Black and multiracial respondents had significantly higher rates of SSD diagnoses and psychotic symptoms than white respondents. However, once the researchers adjusted for neighborhood-level social vulnerability, the magnitude of these racial disparities decreased.
“Inequities in social determinants at the neighborhood level partially attenuated the disparity in SSDs and psychotic symptoms between the non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White groups,” the authors wrote.
While the study’s authors emphasize caution in drawing causal conclusions, their findings align with a broader movement to integrate social epidemiology and psychiatric research. Understanding the relationship between structural conditions and psychosis could help inform interventions that target upstream factors, such as housing policy, community investment, and police violence, rather than relying solely on medical treatment.
You've landed on a MIA journalism article that is funded by MIA supporters. To read the full article, sign up as a MIA Supporter. All active donors get full access to all MIA content, and free passes to all Mad in America events.
Current MIA supporters can log in below.(If you can't afford to support MIA in this way, email us at [email protected] and we will provide you with access to all donor-supported content.)
Wel also environmental factors. This was seen in Victorian London with the smog as well as with Dr Jon Snow abd his work in the coolers epidemic where a water pipe was found to be contaminated. One has to look at the environment as well. All researchers should have to read Dickens just as a way to see human pain and suffering in a multilayered context. I am sure there are others like Kim Stanley Robinson and Jessymen Ward. Fairly simple one would think.
Report comment
Still another article that pathologizes, as “symptoms of psychosis,” what I consider to be the natural, understandable response of impoverished and marginalized groups to the oppressive environments in which they live. I am reminded of a similar article that appeared on the MIA website not long ago which described food insecurity as a factor contributing to poor mental health among the population in certain communities.
In the interest of promoting a broader view, it would behoove researchers–no doubt psychologically “well-adjusted”, financially secure individuals who don’t need to constantly struggle to afford decent products in an urban “food desert” or decide between paying for vital medicines or next month’s rent–to focus their attention on the exploitative mindset and motivation of the political and economic elites responsible for conditions that help create the supposed “psychopathology” of the underclass.
It’s a rhetorical question, but is that shift in focus too much to expect from the “experts?” on such matters?
Report comment
Abby: did you ever examine the design og socio-technical systems from a continuous improvement perspective? As in the eyes of W. Edwards Deming. Asking or exploring civil rights across race, sex creed, gender and disability might trigger a wagon load of design questions supportive of healthier and well financed neighborhoods owned by the, We, The People!
Report comment