How common is schizophrenia?

How common is schizophrenia?

The prevalence of schizophrenia globally varies slightly, depending on which report you look at, from about 0.7% to 1.2% of the adult population in general. Most of these percentages refer to people suffering from schizophrenia "at some time during their lives".

An Australian study found that schizophrenia is more common in developed nations than developing ones. It also found that the illness is less widespread than previously thought. Estimates of 10 per 1,000 people should be changed to 7 or 8 per 1,000 people, the study concluded.

In the USA about 2.2 million adults, or about 1.1% of the population age 18 and older in a given year have schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is not a 'very' common disease. Approximately 1% of people throughout the globe suffer from schizophrenia (or perhaps a little less than 1% in developing countries) at some point in their lives. It is estimated that about 1.2% of Americans, a total of 3.2 million people, have the disorder at some point in their lives. Globally, about 1.5 million people each year are diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the UK it is estimated that about 600,000 people have schizophrenia.