Tracking down the agent(s) responsible for the elusive “migrant” effect in schizophrenia bears similarities with the clever plot twists in a well-crafted crime novel. The new study by Jeremy Coid and coworkers makes substantial headway toward narrowing down the list of suspects, with the spotlight increasingly focused on ethnicity. The current venture has a number of outstanding strengths: large sample size, robust denominator data, and stringent methods of case ascertainment, including leakage analysis. The choice of venue of East London, an area characterized by socioeconomic deprivation, is a strategic advantage, in that the effect of ethnicity can be teased out from socioeconomic disadvantage. The findings indicate that ethnicity had a stronger effect on risk magnitude than did generational status (i.e., place of birth). Black Caribbeans were the only ethnic group where generational status “mattered,” an effect that the authors attribute to differences in the age structures of the underlying populations at risk.

How best to interpret these results, and where do...  Read more

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