Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia affects around 0.3–0.7% of people at some point in their life, or 24 million people worldwide as of 2011. It occurs 1.4 times more frequently in males than females and typically appears earlier in men—the peak ages of onset are 20–28 years for males and 26–32 years for females. Onset in childhood is much rarer, as is onset in middle- or old age. Despite the received wisdom that schizophrenia occurs at similar rates worldwide, its prevalence varies across the world, within countries, and at the local and neighborhood level. It causes approximately 1% of worldwide disability adjusted life years. The rate of schizophrenia varies up to threefold depending on how it is defined.