By Nazario Rodriguez Jr.
Horizon news staff

The results of a study recently conducted in Palau by three American anthropologists revealed that the country has a high rate of schizophrenia, according to a public release that was published by the University of Chicago Press Journals in its online edition on March 14.
The study is entitled " Schizophrenia in Palau: A Biocultural Analysis" by Roger J. Sullivan, John S. Allen and Karen L. Nero from Current Anthropoly. The study challenged the idea that schizophrenia is distinct in developing and developed regions.
Schizophrenia is defined as a psychotic disorder (or group of disorders) marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviors.
The report noted that a previous research by the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that the course and symptomatic expression of schizophrenia is relatively more benign in developing societies.
"However, the a new study from Current Anthropology challenges this assumption, comparing biological and cultural indicators of schizophrenia in urban, Western societies with study data from the island of Palau, which has one of the highest rates of schizophrenia diagnosis in the world today," the CPJ noted.
It quoted the three researchers as saying that a one percent average worldwide population prevalence of schizophrenia is routinely interpreted in the medical literature as implying a uniform distribution.
Sullivan (California State University, Sacramento), Allen (University of Southern California), and Nero (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) said that in this sense, the 1% figure is a myth that conceals considerable variability in actual prevalence between settings.
The researchers pointed Palau as an example of this variation. Their study also revealed that prevalence of schizophrenia ranges from a low of 0.4% in the Marshall Islands to 1.7% in the western Republic of Palau – a more than fourfold difference.
They said that the expression of schizophrenia in Palau and greater Micronesia is also extraordinarily gendered, with rates of affliction approximately two times higher among males than among females.
Recognizing this high variability in prevalence between populations is important, they said, adding that genetic perspectives tend to emphasize uniformity in prevalence and symptomatic expression while contextual sociocultural perspectives tend to emphasize variability.
"The authors combined quantitative clinical diagnostic tools – of symptoms like poor impulse control and eye-tracking – with qualitative methods such as patient interviews<" the CPJ noted in its report.
It said that "compared to a sample of New Yorkers and other similar studies in New Zealand and Scotland, their findings challenge the idea put forth by the WHO and other research that schizophrenia in developing regions is distinct from and more benign than schizophrenia in developed regions.
The researchers also dispute the common assumption that schizophrenia in developing nations is a consequence of development.
"These analyses have identified unique aspects of the expression of schizophrenia in Palau, but more striking to us are the similarities that emerge when comparing the Palauan data with research findings in [Western] settings," the authors write.
Indeed, one of the few significant differences between the Palauan sample and the Western sample was the proportion of participants living at home. (Eighty-seven percent of the Palauan participants lived at home.) Notably, "extensive kin-based levels of support" have been cited by the WHO to explain the supposedly more benign expression of schizophrenia in developing regions.