Ethnicity and discrimination

• Statistics show that schizophrenia is much more prevalent in

  immigrants, and particularly individuals of Afro-Caribbean

  descent
• The cause of this cannot be genetic because the increased risk is

  not apparent in studies conducted in the Caribbean
• Therefore, the additional stress induced through migration to a

  different culture is suggested as being a reasonable explanation

  for these statistics
• We could argue that the higher rate of schizophrenia in the migrant community may be due to discrimination and racism. The increased stress caused by being an immigrant or an ethnic minority may be the trigger that leads to a higher incidence of the disorder
• Boydell et al 


  found that there were more cases of schizophrenia amongst migrant groups when they formed a small proportion of the local

  community. Presumably, in these cases, the isolation, discrimination and racism experienced by these groups would be higher than in areas where there were many more ethnic minorities.This suggests that sociocultural factors contributed to development of the illness
• discrimination in society and psychiatry could be the an explanation for higher incidence of diagnosis of schizophrenia in far-Caribbean individuals within the uk.