Why study only African Americans?

Schizophrenia occurs in people of all backgrounds. We know that people of different cultures report different symptoms. Sometimes they need different treatments. PAARTNERS is a large study to help us understand this illness in African Americans.

African Americans have been understudied and under served in the mental health area. By targeting African Americans, we hope to avoid some problems that have been associated with the lack of participation of African Americans in research studies, such as the lack of effective treatment and poor understanding of ethnic differences in response to drugs and side effects, as well as lack of understanding of cultural impacts on diagnosis and of the life stressors that cause mental illness in different cultures.

We also want to use a specific method that takes advantage of the relatively recent forced migration of Africans within the last 300 years to the Southern States, and the mixing of their blood line with Native Americans and Europeans. This method allows scientists to examine the genetic material (what is passed on from generation to generation) contained in cells to more precisely locate and identify those genes that makes peoples of all races more susceptible to schizophrenia, not just African Americans.

PAARTNERS will ensure a comprehensive study of schizophrenia among African Americans. To our knowledge, it is the most comprehensive study of this kind ever undertaken for any population.