One of the many issues minimized by overemphasis of bio-genetic factors is the role of belonging to a disempowered group. In response to overwhelming evidence that poverty and racism are causative factors for psychosis, biological psychiatry oscillates between ignoring the evidence and distorting it in ways that leaves the primacy of bio-genetic causal theories intact. The issue of gender is more complex. Ethnic minorities' (whether immigrants or colonized indigenous peoples) are significantly more likely to be diagnosed 'schizophrenic' than members of the dominant culture. This has been demonstrated in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden (Zolkowska et al. 2001), the UK and the USA. These rates are only partially explained by higher overall admission rates. In New Zealand, for instance, Maori inpatients are twice as likely to be diagnosed 'schizophrenic' than European inpatients.
By 1974, 24 of 25 US studies had found higher rates of admission for 'schizophrenia' among foreign-born individuals compared with the 'native' population. In a 1983 survey of New York inpatients, the prevalence of 'schizophrenia' among non-Whites was 3.5 times higher than that among White patients, but only 1.4 times as great for affective disorders. (Agar, K. and Read, J. 2002) A Tennessee study found that African Americans constituted 16% of the population, 30% of psychiatric inpatients and 48% of patients diagnosed 'schizophrenic'. Black Americans admitted for the first time for psychosis are seven times more likely to be diagnosed 'schizophrenic' than Whites. A study of 26,400 Los Angeles patients found that Black and Asian patients received psychotic diagnoses, including schizophrenia, at higher rates than Whites. Ethnicity was even more related to diagnosis than socio-economic status.
In Britain, incidence rates for schizophrenia are 3.6 times higher among all ethnic minority groups combined than among Whites. Afro-Caribbeans have been found to be nine and twelve times more likely to be diagnosed schizophrenic than White people............
