Origin and schizophrenia in young refugees and inter-country adoptees from Latin America and East Africa in Sweden: a comparative study

Migrants' socioeconomic adversity has been linked to schizophrenia. To investigate whether the more favourable socioeconomic situation of adoptees prevents them from the high risk of schizophrenia found in other migrants. Register study in a cohort of refugees and inter-country adoptees aged 16-40 years, born in East Africa ( =8389), Latin America ( =11 572) and 1.2 million native Swedes. Cox-regression models estimated hazard ratios (HRs) of schizophrenia in data from psychiatric care. Despite diverse income levels, HRs for schizophrenia were similar for refugees and adoptees, with East Africans having the highest HRs: 5.83 (3.30-10.27) and 5.80 (5.03-6.70), followed by Latin Americans: HRs 3.09 (2.49-3.83) and 2.31 (1.79-2.97), compared with native Swedes. Adjustment for income decreased these risks slightly for refugees, but not for adoptees. This study suggests that risk factors associated with origin are more important determinants of schizophrenia than socioeconomic adversity in the country of settlement. None. © 2016 The Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.