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Effect of socioeconomic status and parents’ education at birth on risk of schizophrenia in offspring

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Abstract

Although it is known that schizophrenia is associated with social class, controversy exists as to the nature of this association. The authors studied the incidence of schizophrenia in relation to social class at birth in a population-based cohort of 88,829 offspring born in Jerusalem in 1964–1976. They constructed a six-point scale to index social class, based on paternal occupation at the time of birth, with each of 108 occupations being ranked by mean education. Cox proportional hazards methods were used in adjusting for sex, parents’ ages, duration of marriage and birth order. Linkage with Israel’s Psychiatric Registry identified 637 people admitted to psychiatric care facilities with schizophrenia-related diagnoses, before 1998. There was no gradient of risk for schizophrenia associated with social class at birth; however, offspring of fathers in the lowest social class showed a modest increase in risk (adjusted Relative Risk = 1.4; 95% Confidence interval = 1.1–1.8, P = 0.002). These data suggest that in contrast to many other health outcomes, there is not a continuous gradient for increasing schizophrenia with decreasing social class of origin. Instead, a modest increase in risk for schizophrenia was observed only for those born at the bottom of the social ladder.

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Acknowledgments

Supported by the National Institutes of Health, 1R01 MH059114-05 (DM); 2K24 MH01699 (DM) and K23MH066279 (CC) and 2R01 CA080197 (SH) and NARSAD (DM, SH, CC). We thank the mothers, fathers and offspring who are in the Jerusalem Perinatal Study. We also thank Dr. Y Friedlander.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 2, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Cheryl Corcoran MD & David Kimhy PhD

  2. Dept. of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA

    Ezra Susser MD, DrPh

  3. Braun School of Public Health, Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health, Jerusalem, Israel

    Lisa Deutsch PhD & Orly Manor PhD

  4. Dept. of Psychiatry, Shalvata Mental Health Center, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel

    Shmuel Fennig MD

  5. Mental Health Services, Israel Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel

    Daniella Nahon BA

  6. Dept. of Psychiatry, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Mary Perrin DrPh, Susan Harlap MBBS & Dolores Malaspina MD

Authors
  1. Cheryl Corcoran MD
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  2. Mary Perrin DrPh
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  3. Susan Harlap MBBS
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  4. Lisa Deutsch PhD
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  5. Shmuel Fennig MD
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  6. Orly Manor PhD
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  7. Daniella Nahon BA
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  8. David Kimhy PhD
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  9. Dolores Malaspina MD
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  10. Ezra Susser MD, DrPh
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Correspondence to Cheryl Corcoran MD.

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Corcoran, C., Perrin, M., Harlap, S. et al. Effect of socioeconomic status and parents’ education at birth on risk of schizophrenia in offspring. Soc Psychiat Epidemiol 44, 265–271 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-008-0439-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-008-0439-5

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