Dissecting the heterogeneity of Schizophrenia outcomes

Goethe believed that data are the natural enemy of hy-potheses. As new data accumulate, only a few lucky hy-potheses survive the fresh empirical onslaught. Over time, most hypotheses eventually need amendment or outright rejection. Schizophrenia epidemiology has been a partic-ularly fertile field in recent years, with new data leading to the revision of several long-standing dogmatic beliefs.1–3 The target article by Cohen et al4 questions another of the oft-repeated tenets of schizophrenia epidemiology. After close inspection of the schizophrenia outcome studies based in low- and middle-income countries, the authors reject the notion that outcomes in these sites are superior to comparable published data from high-income coun-tries.5 It is curious that the hypothesis related to eco-nomic status captured the attention of the researc