by Meg Foy

Created on: January 28, 2007   Last Updated: April 18, 2007

Schizophrenia, an umbrella term itself, is often accompanied by other conditions. One glaring example is the estimated 70 % of schizophrenics that report substance abuse.1 In these cases, there needs to also be consideration given to the fact that the primary disorder may be the addiction, with the psychiatric disorder being secondary.2 Epidemiological models support both events.

Both disorders are complicated and chronic ones with multiple causative agents implicated, varying from the social or environmental to the genetic, biological, and neurodevelopmental.3 They cannot be cured, though they can often be controlled with modern medications and/or advanced treatment delivery systems.
Comorbidity with substance abuse occurs more often in males, especially those that are young (under 36)4 and less educated, and among these patients, psychotic symptoms present earlier too.5 Otherwise, schizophrenia tends to be diagnosed at a later age (around 33, a difference of 8 years later) amongst the lower classes (presumably because of less medical resources), though it does not actually occur at a later age.6 Similarly, it appears to be more prevalent amongst lower income groups, but this is due to stagnation and a social drift downwards, common side effects of the disease, in addition to some cases that were enabled by the stress of poverty. That stress, for instance, could be why it affects migrants just over four and a half times as often as natives.7 Schizophrenia happens to men more often than women, with an incidence ratio of almost 1.4 to 1.8
The presence of schizophrenia overall climbs at a rate inversely proportional to the size of one's local ethnic community, another indication that stress or lack of social support is a contributing factor in its etiology.9 Urban areas report a greater incidence of schizophrenia than rural sites.10 There has been some suggestion that it occurs more often in higher lattitudes,11 and an analysis of incidence in 32 different countries found wide disparities, with a range of a fivefold difference.12 There were more countries with high rates (above the median of 15.2 per 100,000)13 than with lower rates. Schizophrenia was described as early as ancient India and Rome, though may have been more rare in the past. Interestingly, multiple studies indicate that there was a rise in incidence over the period of the Industrial Revolution, spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries, that has tapered off since 1960.14
Greater understanding of the

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