· Patients with schizophrenia, a disease characterized by hallucinations and disorganized thinking, recover sooner and function better in poor countries with strong extended family ties than in the United States, two long-running studies by the World Health Organization have shown.Full Monty· People of Mexican descent born in the United States have twice the risk of disorders such as depression and anxiety, and four times the risk of drug abuse, compared with recent immigrants from Mexico. This finding is part of a growing body of literature that indicates that the newly arrived are more resilient to mental disorders, and that assimilation is associated with higher rates of psychiatric diagnoses.
· Black and Hispanic patients are more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia as white patients -- even though studies indicate that the rate of the disorder is the same in all groups.
· White women in the United States are three times as likely to commit suicide as black and Hispanic women -- a difference that experts attribute in part to the relative strengths of different social networks.