Distribution of treated mental illness in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem

The authors compare the rates of treated mental illness among ethnically advantaged Ashkenazic Jews and ethnically disadvantaged Sephardic Jews in four areas of Jerusalem defined by socioeconomic status and interpret these findings on the basis of social causation and social selection, including genetic transmission.

Abstract

The authors compared the rates of treated mental illness among ethnically advantaged Ashkenazic Jews and ethnically disadvantaged Sephardic Jews in four areas of Jerusalem defined by socioeconomic status. They found that the rates of illness were higher in areas of lower socioeconomic status, that the Ashkenazim had higher rates of illness than the Sephardim in the areas of lower status, and that there was a comparatively high rate of illness among the Ashkenazim in the very religious Jewish neighborhoods. They interpret these findings on the basis of the theories of social causation and social selection, including genetic transmission.