Psychiatric morbidity among West Africans and West Indians living in London

Abstract

All west Africans and West Indians living in Camberwell who made a psychiatric contact between 1 January 1965 and 31 December 1968 were selected using the Camberwell Psychiatric Register as a sampling frame. Inception rates of psychiatric illness were then calculated using the 1966 10% census figures for West Africans and West Indians in Camberwell. The rates found were compared to those among the British living in Camberwell. For each major diagnostic caterogy, with the exception of reactive depression and paranoid states, the inception rates are significantly higher among West Africans than West Indians. They are also significantly higher among West Indians than British. However, the differences in inception rates are generally greater between West Africans and West Indians than between the latter and the British.