African-American men are over-diagnosed with schizophrenia at a rate at least five times higher than other groups, U.S. researchers say.

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Metzl says the race link to misdiagnosis emerged after the civil rights era began in the 1960s. Many black men came to the hospital during the Detroit riots, dramatically increasing the facility’s black population.

How the psychiatric profession defined schizophrenia also changed during this period. In the 1920s through the 1940s, doctors considered the illness as affecting non-violent whites — mainly women — but later changed the language to violent, hostile, angry and aggressive as a way to label black men, Metzl says.

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