Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T18:29:32.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mental Illness and Social Conditions in Bristol

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

E. H. Hare
E. H. Hare*
Affiliation:
Warlingham Park Hospital, Surrey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a pioneer work, Faris and Dunham (1939) studied the distribution of mental disorders in Chicago. Essentially their findings were that the incidence of schizophrenic cases was highest in the central areas of low social and economic status and lowest in the affluent residential districts on the periphery; that the differential distribution of cases of senile and arteriosclerotic dementia was similar to but less marked than that of schizophrenia; but that cases of manic-depressive psychosis were much more evenly distributed throughout the city though with a tendency to higher rates in better-class areas. They concluded that “social isolation”—the fact that in the central area of the city a person tended to be cut off from intimate and lasting emotional relations with other people—was a causal element in schizophrenia and that this accounted for the observed difference of incidence. Their findings have been confirmed in nine other American cities (Clark, 1949) but there have hitherto been no reports of similar studies outside the United States. The aim of the present study was to test, in an English city, the observations of Faris and Dunham on the urban distribution of mental disorders, and, by relating the distribution to various indices of social and economic status, to determine whether any additional evidence could be found for the hypothesis that social isolation is a factor in causing schizophrenia.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 102 , Issue 427 , April 1956 , pp. 349 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1956 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Census 1951, England and Wales, County Report, Gloucestershire, 1953. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
Clark, R. E., Amer. J. Sociol., 1949, 54, 433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunham, H. W., Amer. J. Psychiat., 1953, 109, 567.Google Scholar
Faris, R. E. L., Amer. J. Sociol., 1934, 40, 155.Google Scholar
Idem , ibid, 1938, 43, 203.Google Scholar
Idem , Personality and Behaviour Disorders, Ed. Hunt, J. McV., 1944, Vol. II, p. 736. New York.Google Scholar
Idem and Dunham, H. W., Mental Disorders in Urban Areas, 1939. Chicago.Google Scholar
Gruenberg, E. M., Amer. J. Psychiat., 1954, 110, 888.Google Scholar
Hare, E. H., British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 1955, 9, 191.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B., Elus, R., and Kirby, E., Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1954, 19, 577.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B., and Redlich, F. C., Amer. J. Psychiat., 1954, 110, 695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B., and Redlich, F. C., Amer. J. Psychiat., 1955, 112, 179.Google Scholar
Hyde, M. C., and Kingsley, L. V., New Eng. J. Med., 1944, 231, 571.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaco, E. G., Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1954, 19, 577.Google Scholar
Kohn, M. L., and Clausen, J. A., Amer. Sociol. Rev., 1955, 20, 265.Google Scholar
Little, B., The City and County of Bristol, 1954, p. 318. London.Google Scholar
Liverpool University, Social Contacts in Old Age, 1953. University Press of Liverpool.Google Scholar
Millbank Memorial Fund, Interrelations between Social Environment and Psychiatric Disorders, 1953. New York.Google Scholar
Owen, M. B., Amer. J. Sociol., 1941, 47, 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Registrar General, Studies in Medical and Population Subjects: No. 8, Measurement of Morbidity, 1954. London: H.M.S.O. Google Scholar
Sainsbury, P., Suicide in London, an Ecological Study, 1955. London.Google Scholar
Zorbaugh, H. W., The Goldcoast and the Slum, 1929. Chicago.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.