UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The association between racism and psychosis: An umbrella review

Francis-Crossley, India; Hudson, Georgie; Harris, Lasana; Onwumere, Juliana; Kirkbride, James B; (2025) The association between racism and psychosis: An umbrella review. PLoS Mental Health , 2 (9) , Article e0000401. 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000401. Green open access

[thumbnail of journal.pmen.0000401.pdf]
Preview
Text
journal.pmen.0000401.pdf - Published Version

Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Elevated rates of psychosis are consistently identified in people from racialised backgrounds, with growing evidence from the systematic review literature that suggests a role for racial/ethnic discrimination. We synthesised current systematic review evidence on the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and psychosis. We conducted an umbrella review, systematically searching Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, ProQuest Central and Google Scholar (up to 19 July 2024) for systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in peer-reviewed journals exploring the effect of racial/ethnic discrimination on psychosis. 2898 citations were de-duplicated and screened, included reviews were assessed for risk of bias using AMSTAR-2 and extracted data analysed narratively following a pre-registered protocol (CRD42023400656). Seven reviews (reporting 23 primary studies representing 40,300 participants) met inclusion criteria, five of which explicitly reported on the association between racial/ethnic discrimination and psychosis. All observed evidence of a positive relationship between the two, including meta-analyses for psychotic symptoms (adjusted OR=1.77, 95%CI 1.26, 2.49) and psychotic experiences (pooled OR=1.94, 95%CI 1.42, 2.67). We observed more robust evidence for psychotic outcomes in non-clinical populations. Despite this, results were driven by cross-sectional studies (87%) and were hindered by high heterogeneity and low (n = 2) or critically low (n = 5) AMSTAR-2 review quality scores. The available systematic review evidence supports a role for racial/ethnic discrimination in developing psychosis, but high-quality studies are needed to determine the temporal and mechanistic causal pathways through which this occurs. The current findings add to knowledge on the widespread presence and deleterious impacts of racism on health and inform potential public health interventions that reduce exposure to, and the impact of, racial/ethnic discrimination.

Type: Article
Title: The association between racism and psychosis: An umbrella review
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmen.0000401
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmen.0000401
Language: English
Additional information: © 2025 Francis-Crossley et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Division of Psychiatry > Epidemiology and Applied Clinical Research
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214440
Downloads since deposit
2Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item