Urban environment and schizophrenia

Selten et al (2005) cite two reasons for the increased risk of schizophrenia in Surinamese immigrants to The Netherlands. These are an increased base rate in the Surinamese population and exposure to an urban competitive Dutch society. These findings are of particular interest to researchers in Trinidad and Tobago because both countries share a similar mix of African and East Indian population and historically were simultaneously but independently developed by British and Dutch colonisers.

Interestingly, the authors noted that in their own study of Surinam and studies from Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados no excess of schizophrenia was reported in the native countries. In addition, they argue that an overrepresentation of patients resident in Paramaribo points to an urban causation. The two reasons cited by the authors need further analysis.

The concept of urban environment causing disease is complex. Van Os (2004) proposes that the urban environment with a set of environmental factors acting between birth and the onset of illness is a risk factor for psychotic illness. However, Hutchinson & Morgan (2005) argue that the risk for psychosis is not specifically the urban environment but the social disadvantages and isolation experienced by vulnerable individuals in an urban society. These interact with perceptions of self, transgenerational expectations, cognitive processes and the urban environment to confer risk. Although both these views are tenable, is it not fair to assume that the variables described as associated with an urban environment will also be present in suburban or rural environments? It appears, then, that the effect lies in the confounding variables described rather than the urban effect.

‘Toxicity’ of any environment is determined by the stability of the social framework that governs the lives of individuals. It is debatable whether the variables of racism, alienation, political discrimination, unemployment, lack of opportunity, crime and fear of crime are more common in urban areas in developing countries. There is often no means of rural living for urban dwellers in these countries and many opt to escape through migration to foreign lands. Migration from the native country is therefore associated with a release from these stressful factors, as is the case of some ethnic groups in the Caribbean. In societies where environmental factors confer greater stress either in the native or the receiving country, the rates of psychosis will be higher and should not be attributed only to the base rates of the native country as proposed by Selten et al. If a social model were to be developed, consideration must be given to the time between assault and disease manifestation with a formula for lag time, rather than equating disease with geographical location at the time of manifestation.

The degree of urbanisation cannot simply be judged by the number of households per square kilometre. In developing countries, the division of areas into urban and rural is arbitrary; consideration must be given to the availability of basic amenities, geographical distance from cities and towns, the availability of newspapers and electronic media, the degree of literacy, transportation systems and the presence of household amenities. The fact that all people in Surinam have access to psychiatric care except for two remote districts that are looked after by medical missions suggests a movement away from rurality, since access to psychiatric care is a good index of development. Nevertheless, in many rural communities there is a distrust of Western psychiatric services and, as pointed out by Selten et al, help is often sought from traditional healers. This can result in statistical inaccuracies in both directions, through leakage of cases and delay in first contact with the psychiatric services.

Our findings in Trinidad suggest that gender and ethnicity are important variables in ‘urbanisation’. In more urbanised areas, more males aged between 15 and 29 years presented with schizophrenia than females. The affected young males were more likely to be of African descent. A neuroprotective effect of oestrogen in females could be responsible for their low rates of schizophrenia, and neuronal plasticity in response to exposure to a new environment and its effects on the disease process is another area of possible future research.

Selten et al and others have raised important questions that are relevant to Caribbean people and those who have migrated and settled abroad. Cross-cultural differences, environmental factors and gender affect the risk for the development of psychosis but the final common pathway of any disease is at the molecular level. Genetic factors must therefore also be taken into consideration.