Ødegaard’s Selection Hypothesis Revisited: Schizophrenia in Surinamese Immigrants to the Netherlands

Abstract

The incidence of schizophrenia among Surinamese immigrants to the Netherlands is high. The authors tested Ødegaard's hypothesis that this phenomenon is explained by selective migration. The authors imagined that migration from Surinam to the Netherlands subsumed the entire population of Surinam and not solely individuals at risk for schizophrenia. They compared the risk of a first admission to a Dutch mental hospital for schizophrenia from 1983 to 1992 for Surinamese-born immigrants to the risk for Dutch-born individuals, using the Surinamese-born population in the Netherlands and the population of Surinam combined as the denominator for the immigrants. The age- and sex-adjusted relative risk of schizophrenia for the Surinamese-born immigrants was 1.46. Selective migration cannot solely explain the higher incidence of schizophrenia in Surinamese immigrants to the Netherlands.