Background: Ethnic minorities in the Netherlands face an excess psychosis risk, and understanding of causality remains limited. Linguistic disadvantage and other indicators of societal exclusion might play a role, and offer potential targets for public health interventions.
Aim: To establish the contribution of linguistic disadvantage, indicators of social distance and perceived discrimination to the increased risk of psychoses in migrants and ethnic minorities.
Methods: We used the Dutch data from an international case-control study into psychotic disorders (the EU-GEI study). A first episode of psychosis was our outcome variable, and we used well-defined data on established confounders (e.g. age and sex) and indicators of ethnicity, social distance, linguistic disadvantage and perceived discrimination as our predictor variables.
Results: Ethnic minorities face an increased psychosis risk. This appears to be the case for both first- and second- generation migrants and so-called ‘Western’ and non-Western migrants. Though confounders and social distance appear to contribute, linguistic disadvantage appears to play a role in the excess psychosis risk in first-generation migrants.
Conclusion: Reducing the social consequences of linguistic disadvantage or social distance might be a starting point for concrete public health interventions aimed at preventing the increased psychosis risk faced by first-generation migrants.