Journal
EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRIC SCIENCES
Volume 28, Issue 2, Pages 146-152Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S2045796018000501
Keywords
Epidemiology; Mental Health; Minority Issues and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry; Public Health; Schizophrenia
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Funding
- Sir Henry Dale Fellowship - Wellcome Trust
- Sir Henry Dale Fellowship - Royal Society [101272/Z/13/Z]
- Mental Health Research UK
- UCL Overseas Research Scholarship
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Understanding the excess risk of psychotic disorders in migrant and ethnic minority groups has long been an important research focus in psychiatric epidemiology and public mental health. Heterogeneity between migrant groups based on the region of origin, minority status and other socioeconomic factors may provide clues as to the underlying aetiological mechanisms explaining this risk, as well as informing our general understanding of psychotic disorders. Nonetheless, disentangling the mechanisms underlying this association has been the focus of more speculation and theory to date than empirical research. Now more than ever, we need to move beyond studies which demonstrate excess rates in migrant and ethnic minority groups to novel population-based studies which identify the determinants and mechanisms through which this risk is shaped. In this paper, we review the main hypotheses proposed to explain these disparities and the current level of support for them. We then highlight recent evidence from epidemiology and neuroscience which provides important new clues in our understanding of the aetiology of psychotic disorders. We concluded with suggestions for future interdisciplinary research to prevent this public mental health inequality within a generation.
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