Higher genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with living in urban and populated areas

Lucía Colodro‐Conde; Baptiste Couvy‐Duchesne; John B. Whitfield; Fabian Streit; Scott D. Gordon; Kathryn E. Kemper; Loïc Yengo; Zhili Zheng; Maciej Trzaskowski; Eveline L. de Zeeuw; Michel Guillaume Nivard; Marjolijn Das; Rachel Ε. Neale; Stuart MacGregor; Catherine M. Olsen; David C. Whiteman; Dorret Irene Boomsma; Jian Yang; Marcella Rietschel; John Joseph McGrath; Sarah Elizabeth Medland; Nicholas G. Martin

doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2018.1581

GeneticsJAMA PsychiatryJun 23, 2018

Peer-reviewed journal article

Higher genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with living in urban and populated areas

Lucía Colodro‐Conde iD, Baptiste Couvy‐Duchesne iD, John B. Whitfield iD, Fabian Streit iD, Scott D. Gordon iD, Kathryn E. Kemper iD, Loïc Yengo iD, Zhili Zheng iD, Maciej Trzaskowski iD, Eveline L. de Zeeuw iD, Michel Guillaume Nivard iD, Marjolijn Das iD, Rachel Ε. Neale iD, Stuart MacGregor iD, Catherine M. Olsen iD, David C. Whiteman iD, Dorret Irene Boomsma iD, Jian Yang iD, Marcella Rietschel iD, John Joseph McGrath iD, Sarah Elizabeth Medland iD, Nicholas G. Martin iD

Abstract

Social stress in urban life has been proposed as an environmental risk factor associated with the increased prevalence of schizophrenia in urban compared to rural areas. However, the potential genetic contributions to this relationship have been largely ignored.\n\nUsing a community-based sample of 15,544 adults living in Australia, we found higher genetic loading for schizophrenia in participants living in more densely populated (p-value=5.69*10-5) or less remote areas (p-value=0.003). Mendelian Randomization suggested that high schizophrenia genetic risk is a causal factor in chosing to live in denser (p-value=0.046) and less remote areas (p-value=0.044).\n\nOur results support the hypothesis of selective migration to more urban environments by people at higher genetic risk for schizophrenia and suggest a need to refine the social stress model for schizophrenia by including genetic influences on where people choose to live.

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