Building a healthier Britain. Part Four, Schizophrenia.

Since the 1950s doctors have continuously researched people's health and lifestyle. In the last of a four-part series, Richard Hannaford examines the results of these epidemiological studies. This part focuses on schizophrenia. One person in a hundred suffers from schizophrenia and among some groups, especially migrants, the incidence appears to be even higher. Over the last two decades, psychiatrists have standardised the diagnosis of schizophrenia to include a range of symptoms like delusions and hallucinations, but the causes of schizophrenia still remain a mystery. Is there a genetic influence? Why do women typically present with schizophrenia ten years after men? And why are young black men more than six times likely to be diagnosed with the condition? Hannaford follows the population studies that have highlighted these anomalies and thrown up interesting theories about the cause of this disease.