Teen migrants to Europe may be twice as likely to experience psychosis as native Europeans

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-10-03 04:00

International

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International scientists looked at links between migration at different ages and later psychosis among 937 migrants and 1,195 white non-migrants across Europe, and found migrants of all ages have a higher risk of experiencing a psychotic episode than native Europeans. However, part of this increased risk appears to be due to experiencing adversity as part of a minority in their new homes, the authors say. When they accounted for that, only those who migrated as teenagers were at increased risk of psychosis, particularly black or North African people. Interventions to help migrants cope with the upheaval in their lives, and the attitudes they encounter on arriving in new countries, are warranted, the authors conclude.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS Mental Health

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University College London, UK

Funder: The EU-GEI Study was funded by grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI) from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme. The Brazilian study was funded by grant 2012-0417-0 from the São Paulo Research Foundation. EU-GEI funding was awarded to the following authors (in order they appear in the authorship list): CA, LdH, DLB, ELC, JPS, AS, IT, BPFR, PBJ, CM, JBK. The funders of the EU-GEI study were not involved in the design of this study including analysis and interpretation. The manuscript submission was through decision of the authors. HA is recipient of a UCL-Wellcome Mental Health Science PhD studentship funded by The Wellcome Trust [218497/Z/19/Z].

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