Socioeconomic Status at Birth Is Associated With Risk of Schizophrenia: Population-Based Multilevel Study

Abstract

Individual- and community-level SES at the time of birth are associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia.

Employment and income among first-time cases diagnosed with non-affective psychosis in Stockholm, Sweden: a follow-up study 2004/2005–2010

“…Presumably, our findings of poor employment and income conditions the year prior to diagnosis may partly be explained by the knowledge that a significant number of patients with schizophrenia have prodromal symptoms or untreated psychoses several years before diagnosis [28,29]. There is increasing evidence that social adversity during childhood is a risk factor for the later development of psychotic disorders [10][11][12][13][14]30]. Thus, poor social conditions at baseline may reflect this phenomenon.…”

“…Lower individual socioeconomic status is found to be associated with higher prevalence of schizophrenia [8,9], and also various measures of childhood social factors (e.g., parental socioeconomic status and social adversity) have influence [10][11][12][13][14]. Previous research has found that family life and employment of those with psychosis and schizophrenia are negatively impacted [15,16].…”

On the Association Between Greater Family Identification and Lower Paranoid Ideation Among Non-Clinical Individuals: Evidence From Cypriot and Spanish Students

“…Third, the only socio-demographic variable we measured was gender (and it was ultimately not included in the regression analyses due to its lack of predictive power). Previous research has shown that various socio-demographic variables may impact upon mental health, particularly urbanicity (Krabbendam & Van Os, 2005) and socio-economic status (Werner, Malaspina, & Rabinowitz, 2007). Because these variables are also likely to be linked to group identification, adding them as covariates in future research would contribute to a better understanding of the independent effects of group identi-fication on mental health.…”

Social Disadvantage: Cause or Consequence of Impending Psychosis?

“…4 A recent meta-analysis including 36 studies found evidence that childhood adversity is substantially associated with an increased risk for psychosis and suggested that studies should focus on differentiating adversity types. 5 Special attention has been given to social inequality at birth and the parental socioeconomic situation of people who develop psychosis [6][7][8] ; but there are still unanswered questions. As a marker of social disadvantage in childhood we focused on long-term separation from, or death of, one or both parents; only a few studies have specifically examined these associations.…”