Friday, August 19, 2022

Why Mental Illness is a Public Policy Issue

 “Data obtained from a Swedish birth cohort indicates that men with major mental disorders are four times more likely than men with no disorder or handicap to commit a violent offense. The corresponding risk for females is 27 times greater…. In Denmark, a study with a followup period of more than 25 years demonstrated that 20 percent of male and 44 percent of female homicide offenders had a diagnosis of psychosis…” In Finland, "schizophrenia increased the odds ratio of com mitting homicides by about tenfold among both genders. Schizophrenia without alcoholism increased the odds ratios by about sevenfold among men , and schizophrenia with alcoholism by about seventeenfold. The corresponding ratios for women were about fivefold for schizophrenia without alcoholism an d more than eightyfold for schizophrenia with alcoholism.[1]



[1] Markku Eronen, Jarl Tllhonen, and Panu Hakola, “Schizophrenia and Homicidal Behavior,” Schizophrenia Bulletin 22:1 (1996) 83, 84, https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article-pdf/22/1/83/5412202/22-1-83.pdf, last accessed August 19, 2022.

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