Schizophrenia affects a small share of the population but contributes substantially to disability. Kadakia and colleagues estimated its excess economic burden in the United States at $343.2 billion for 2019, including health care, caregiving and lost productivity. That figure is a historical annual estimate and does not measure current spending. The figures below link to their sources and retain the study periods and populations needed to interpret them.
Last full review: September 13, 2026 · sourced from NIMH, WHO, the Global Burden of Disease study, federal datasets and peer-reviewed meta-analyses.
Ten numbers that define schizophrenia in 2026
WHO estimates that 27 million people worldwide live with schizophrenia; among adults aged 20 and over, it reports about 1 in 206. WHO, 2026
NIMH reports U.S. prevalence estimates of 0.25% to 0.64% for schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders across studies using different methods and populations. NIMH
The Global Burden of Disease study counted 23.6 million prevalent cases in 2019, up more than 65% since 1990 in raw numbers while age-standardized rates stayed flat. Solmi et al., Molecular Psychiatry, 2023
20.5 years was the peak onset age for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and primary psychotic states in a 2022 meta-analysis; 47.8% began before 25 and 3% before 14. Solmi et al., Molecular Psychiatry, 2022
A Danish twin-register study estimated schizophrenia heritability at 79%, with concordance of 33% in identical twins and 7% in fraternal twins. Hilker et al., Biological Psychiatry, 2018
A 2017 meta-analysis estimated 14.5 years of potential life lost in schizophrenia, with pooled life expectancy of 59.9 years for men and 67.6 for women. Hjorthøj et al., Lancet Psychiatry, 2017
A 2022 meta-analysis found all-cause mortality 2.94 times the general population’s across 57 studies, and suicide mortality 9.76 times across 28 studies. Correll et al., World Psychiatry, 2022
The estimated U.S. excess economic burden was $343.2 billion in 2019, about double the inflation-adjusted 2013 estimate; methods also changed between estimates. Kadakia et al., Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2022
More than two in three people with psychosis worldwide receive no specialist mental health care; only 29% do. WHO, 2026
A 2019 review estimated schizophrenia prevalence at 10.29% across 24 studies of people experiencing homelessness, and any psychotic disorder at 21.21% across 18 studies. Ayano et al., BMC Psychiatry, 2019
How common schizophrenia is
Schizophrenia prevalence depends on the population and definition being measured. NIMH’s U.S. range covers schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, while MDPS measures the broader schizophrenia spectrum and distinguishes lifetime from past-year prevalence. WHO’s current fact sheet estimates 27 million people worldwide. These sources answer related but different questions.
People worldwide live with schizophrenia, about 27 million in total
WHO’s fact sheet, updated September 11, 2026, estimates that 27 million people worldwide live with schizophrenia. It reports adult prevalence of 1 in 206 (0.49%) among people aged 20 and over. These are population estimates, and the adult figure uses a different age denominator from the global count. Onset is most often in late adolescence or the twenties. WHO separately reports that approximately 50% of people in mental hospitals have a schizophrenia diagnosis. This hospital statistic describes who occupies those beds and says nothing about how many people with schizophrenia are ever hospitalized.
| 0.25% to 0.64% | U.S. prevalence of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders NIMH summarizes household surveys, diagnostic interviews and medical records, including studies published in 2005 and 2006. Excluding hospitalized, homeless or incarcerated people can affect estimates; the range does not measure the size of that exclusion bias. |
| 0.33% to 0.75% | International prevalence among non-institutionalized people NIMH summarizes international studies published in 2005 and 2018. These estimates concern schizophrenia among non-institutionalized people; diagnostic definitions and sampling methods differ from the U.S. studies, so the ranges are not directly interchangeable. |
| 3.7 million | U.S. adults aged 18 to 65 with a lifetime history of a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder The 2023 MDPS report, based on interviews conducted from October 2020 to October 2022, estimates 3.7 million (1.8%) with a lifetime history. Its past-year estimate is 2.5 million (1.2%). The spectrum includes schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and schizophreniform disorder. |
| 3.9 million | Americans with schizophrenia in the 2019 economic burden model The 2022 model applied a lifetime prevalence assumption of 1.19% to the 2019 U.S. population, giving 3,906,050 people. This is a modeled count used for costing, rather than a survey count of people currently experiencing symptoms. |
| 23.6 million | Prevalent cases worldwide in 2019, Global Burden of Disease study The GBD 2019 analysis estimated 23.6 million prevalent cases and an age-standardized prevalence of 287.4 per 100,000. These modeled estimates have uncertainty intervals and should be compared within the same GBD round. |
| 80.54 per 100,000 | Median annual incidence of first-episode psychosis among privately insured Americans aged 15 to 40 The 2026 study identified 86,695 first-episode diagnoses in commercial claims from 2013 to 2021. Comparing estimated incidence with national program enrollment suggested that more than 90% do not access coordinated specialty care; it did not follow everyone over a lifetime. |
How the major prevalence estimates compare
Interpreting global counts across study rounds
An analysis of GBD 2021 estimates 23.18 million prevalent cases and 1.223 million incident cases in 2021, with the prevalent count up about 70.1% since 1990 and relatively stable global age-standardized estimates (Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2025). Stable age-standardized estimates do not show that risk was unchanged in every country or age group. GBD 2021 is also not the latest round cited by WHO’s 2026 fact sheet. The Lancet Commission announcement describes about 23 million people with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders and reports schizophrenia accounting for 1.5% to 3% of health expenditure in developed countries (Fondation FondaMental, May 24, 2026). These are attributed summaries from separate sources and do not add up to a single harmonized global estimate.
Who schizophrenia affects
Global estimates show a modest male predominance in schizophrenia, while age of onset tends to be earlier in men. Family studies, diagnosis-disparity research and studies of people experiencing homelessness address different aspects of who is affected. Custody-related distress figures below provide context for care needs; they do not measure schizophrenia prevalence.
Heritability of schizophrenia in the nationwide Danish twin register
The 2018 study analyzed 31,524 Danish twin pairs born between 1951 and 2000 and followed through June 1, 2011. Estimated schizophrenia concordance was 33% for identical twins and 7% for fraternal twins; heritability was 79% for schizophrenia and 73% for the broader spectrum. Heritability describes variation in susceptibility within a population under a statistical model. It is not the percentage of an individual’s illness caused by genes, and the concordance estimate is not a guarantee about either twin’s future.
| 1.1 to 1 | Male-to-female ratio of prevalence worldwide The 2023 GBD analysis reports a male-to-female burden ratio of 1.1 across 1990 to 2019. Raw prevalence was higher in women after age 65; the authors discuss earlier male onset and longer female life expectancy as possible explanations. |
| Late teens to early 30s | Typical onset window, with men first NIMH places male onset in late adolescence to the early twenties and female onset in the early twenties to early thirties. Its topic page states that diagnosis usually occurs between 16 and 30; onset and diagnosis are distinct events. |
| 2.42x | Odds that a Black American is diagnosed with schizophrenia compared with a White American The 2018 meta-analysis combined 55 U.S. studies. The structured-interview subgroup had an odds ratio of 1.77, but its difference from unstructured assessments was not statistically significant; these data do not isolate clinician judgment as the cause. |
| 3 to 6x | Higher likelihood that autistic youth develop schizophrenia than neurotypical peers A 2022 conceptual review reports this association for autistic youth and discusses overlapping clinical and genetic features. Read it as a relative association. It gives no absolute probability that an autistic person will develop schizophrenia. |
| 10.29% | Pooled schizophrenia prevalence in studies of people experiencing homelessness The 2019 review included 31 studies and 51,925 participants overall, but the schizophrenia estimate uses 24 studies. Eighteen studies yielded 21.21% for any psychotic disorder. Schizophrenia estimates ranged from 8.83% in developed-country studies to 22.15% in developing-country studies, with substantial heterogeneity. |
| 14% and 26% | Prisoners and jail inmates with serious psychological distress in the past 30 days, versus 5% of the general population BJS’s 2011 to 2012 National Inmate Survey measured distress during the previous 30 days and compared it with a standardized general-population estimate. These are broad distress measures; they do not count schizophrenia diagnoses or estimate schizophrenia prevalence in custody. |
Substance use disorders in schizophrenia-spectrum and first-episode psychosis studies, 1990 to 2017
Cannabis and first-episode psychosis across 11 sites in Europe and Brazil, 2010 to 2015 (901 cases and 1,237 controls)
| Exposure or scenario | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Daily cannabis use versus never use, adjusted odds ratio | 3.2x | Di Forti et al., 2019 |
| Daily high-potency use versus never use, adjusted odds ratio | 4.8x | Di Forti et al., 2019 |
| Estimated preventable fraction across all sites if high-potency cannabis were unavailable, assuming causality | 12.2% | Di Forti et al., 2019 |
| Same modeled fraction for London, assuming causality | 30.3% | Di Forti et al., 2019 |
| Same modeled fraction for Amsterdam, assuming causality | 50.3% | Di Forti et al., 2019 |
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Onset, symptoms and course
Onset and diagnosis often occur in young adulthood, but the timing varies. Studies of first-episode psychosis show substantial delays before treatment, and research uses several definitions of recovery. The figures below retain those distinctions so that an age distribution, a treatment delay and a recovery proportion are not mistaken for an individual prognosis.
Peak onset age for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and primary psychotic states
The 2022 meta-analysis covered 192 studies and 708,561 people across many mental disorders. Its schizophrenia-spectrum and primary-psychosis group included 36 studies, with median onset at 25 and an interquartile range of 20 to 34. Within that broader group, 3% of onsets occurred before 14, 12.3% before 18 and 47.8% before 25. The peak age was 20.5 years. These are population summaries rather than diagnostic age cutoffs, and the full review’s sample size should not be mistaken for a schizophrenia-only sample.
| 16 to 30 | Age range in which most people are first diagnosed NIMH states that schizophrenia is usually diagnosed between ages 16 and 30, after the first episode of psychosis. Changes in thinking, mood and social functioning can precede that episode; these changes are not specific enough to establish a diagnosis. |
| 75% to 80% | Schizophrenia cases with onset before age 40, in a 2019 review The clinical review defines early onset as before 40, late onset as 40 to 60 and very late onset as after 60. It estimates 20% to 25% begin in the latter two groups; women are more represented in later-onset groups. |
| 14 weeks | Median duration of untreated psychosis worldwide, with a mean of 42.6 weeks The 2024 meta-analysis included 369 studies of first-episode psychosis. The pooled median used 206 studies and 37,215 people; the mean of 42.6 weeks used 283 studies and 41,320 people. These summarize different sets of studies. |
| 74 weeks | Median duration of untreated psychosis among 404 Americans in the NIMH RAISE trial The U.S. RAISE trial enrolled 404 people aged 15 to 40 with first-episode schizophrenia or related disorders. Its 2016 report found a 74-week median delay. This selected trial sample should not be treated as a nationally representative U.S. estimate. |
| 13.5% | Median share of people who meet strict recovery criteria The 2013 review included 50 studies of schizophrenia and related psychoses, searched through October 2011. Recovery required improvement in clinical and social domains, sustained for at least two years in at least one domain. It did not establish the current recovery rate. |
| At least 1 in 3 | People with schizophrenia who will be able to fully recover, per WHO WHO’s September 11, 2026 fact sheet says at least one in three people will be able to fully recover and at least a third experience complete remission of symptoms. These statements use different concepts from the strict historical review above; their difference is not a measured change over time. |
Mean duration of untreated psychosis by continent, in weeks
Untreated psychosis and later outcomes
In the 2016 RAISE report, coordinated care improved quality-of-life scores over two years, with an effect size of 0.31 overall. The effect sizes were 0.54 for untreated psychosis lasting 74 weeks or less and 0.07 for longer durations (Kane et al., 2016). Those subgroup differences do not make 74 weeks a biological deadline for benefit. A review published online on December 26, 2024 describes estimates of impaired illness awareness ranging from 50% to 98%, with important differences in definitions and measures (Rose and Harvey, CNS Spectrums). That wide range should not be read as a precise current prevalence or as the sole explanation for delayed care.
Impact: health, mortality and cost
Schizophrenia’s economic burden extends to families, employers and health systems. A U.S. model published in 2022 estimated that indirect costs accounted for nearly three quarters of the 2019 total. Comparisons with the earlier 2013 estimate reflect both changing costs and changes in how researchers counted and valued the burden.
Excess economic burden of schizophrenia in the United States in 2019
The 2022 study estimated $251.9 billion in indirect costs (73.4% of the total), including caregiving ($112.3 billion), premature mortality ($77.9 billion) and unemployment ($54.2 billion). Direct health care was $62.3 billion (18.2%), and direct non-health care was $35.0 billion (10.2%) before subtracting $6.0 billion in cost offsets (1.7%). The annual excess cost was $87,856 per modeled person with schizophrenia. The estimate roughly doubled from 2013 after inflation adjustment, but the methods and prevalence assumptions also changed, so this is not a like-for-like measurement of spending growth.
| 3% to 4% | Swedish adults with schizophrenia classified as employed as their main activity, 2006 to 2013 The register study covered ages 18 to 64. Disability pension was the main activity for 86% in 2006 and 83% in 2013. The employment measure is a main-activity classification rather than a count of anyone doing paid work; the study does not establish a U.S. employment rate. |
| 26.8% | Lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts among people with schizophrenia The review published online in 2019 included 35 studies and 16,747 people overall; 28 studies contributed to lifetime prevalence. The 45.9% since-onset and 3.0% one-year estimates each came from only two studies. Because the samples and recall periods differ, the three figures cannot be compared directly as risks. |
| 10.1% vs 6.6% | Recorded violent victimisation in schizophrenia-spectrum patients versus community controls, Victoria, Australia The 2013 study linked records for 4,168 patients and 4,641 community controls, using diagnosis cohorts from 1975 to 2005. Recorded sexual victimisation was 1.7% versus 0.3% (reported odds ratio 2.77). These record-based proportions are not annual victimisation rates. |
| 41.8% | Caregivers reporting moderate to severe burden in a 2012 Iranian convenience sample Among 225 family caregivers recruited in Hamadan from July to September 2012, 41.8% reported moderate to severe burden, 27.1% severe burden and 43.1% feelings of burnout. This single-hospital sample does not estimate national caregiver prevalence. |
| 12 per 100,000 | State psychiatric hospital beds in the United States, against a recommended 50 TAC reports 12 state-hospital beds per 100,000 people in 2023 and cites an expert planning benchmark of 50. Beds occupied by civil patients per capita fell 17% from 2016 to 2023; the median jail wait was two months across 26 reporting states. |
Where the estimated 2019 U.S. burden sits (Kadakia et al., 2022; rounded amounts)
| Component | 2019 cost | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| Indirect costs, all | $251.9B | 73.4% |
| Unpaid caregiving | $112.3B | part of the 73.4% |
| Premature mortality | $77.9B | part of the 73.4% |
| Unemployment | $54.2B | part of the 73.4% |
| Direct health care | $62.3B | 18.2% |
| Direct non-health care before offsets | $35.0B | 10.2% |
| Cost offsets subtracted | -$6.0B | -1.7% |
Disability at global scale
Schizophrenia accounted for 12.2% of mental-disorder DALYs in GBD 2019 and ranked 20th among all causes of years lived with disability. The disability weight for acute psychosis was the highest health-state weight in that study (GBD 2019 Mental Disorders Collaborators, 2022). Solmi and colleagues report 15.1 million schizophrenia DALYs for 2019 (Solmi et al., 2023). NIMH’s separate statistics summary describes schizophrenia among the top 15 causes of disability (NIMH). Those rankings come from different source summaries and should not be treated as a measured change in rank. DALYs combine disability and premature mortality, although the GBD method does not capture the full excess mortality associated with schizophrenia.
Treatment and the care gap
Maintenance antipsychotic trials show lower relapse rates than placebo, and a 2017 review found clozapine response in about four in ten participants with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Access remains uneven: WHO reports low specialist-care coverage for psychosis worldwide, while U.S. data show declining clozapine prescribing per Medicare Part D enrollee between 2015 and 2020.
People with psychosis worldwide who do not receive specialist mental health care
WHO’s September 11, 2026 fact sheet reports that only 29% of people with psychosis receive specialist mental health care. This concerns psychosis as a group, rather than schizophrenia alone. A separate U.S. measure from the 2022 NSDUH found that 66.7% of adults with serious mental illness received mental health treatment, representing 10.2 million of an estimated 15.4 million adults. That broader category includes multiple diagnoses, and its treatment measure includes inpatient, outpatient and prescription care. These percentages describe different populations and services, so they cannot be used as a direct international comparison.
| 27% vs 64% | One-year relapse on antipsychotic medication versus placebo The 2012 review included 65 randomized maintenance-treatment trials with 6,493 patients stabilized before continuation or withdrawal. One-year relapse was 27% versus 64% (risk ratio 0.40; number needed to treat 3); readmission was 10% versus 26%. |
| 40.1% | People with treatment-resistant schizophrenia who respond to clozapine The 2017 meta-analysis estimated a 40.1% response rate, with a 22-point mean PANSS symptom-score reduction across the analyzed treatment data as a whole, responders and non-responders alike. Its background estimates 25% to 33% have treatment resistance and suggests 12% to 20% may also not respond adequately to clozapine. |
| 0.43 | All-cause mortality risk ratio associated with clozapine use versus no antipsychotic The 2022 observational meta-analysis reported risk ratios of 0.71 for any antipsychotic, 0.39 for second-generation long-acting injectables and 0.43 for clozapine versus non-use. Associations can be affected by differences between treated and untreated groups; this is not a randomized drug ranking. |
| -18.0% | Change in population-adjusted clozapine prescriptions among Medicare Part D enrollees, 2015 to 2020 Prescriptions fell from 32.2 to 26.4 per thousand enrollees, with nine-fold variation between states; only Massachusetts and South Dakota consistently prescribed well above average. |
| 353 | Coordinated specialty care programs for first-episode psychosis in the United States in 2021 EPINET reported 353 programs in 2021, compared with 59 in 2014, a 498% increase. At the time, 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico had programs. The federal block-grant set-aside rose from 5% to 10% during this period. |
| More than 90% | Estimated share of Americans with first-episode psychosis not accessing coordinated specialty care The 2026 authors compared incidence from privately insured people aged 15 to 40 in 2013 to 2021 with national CSC enrollment. The greater-than-90% estimate is inferred by combining datasets; nobody directly observed every American with a first episode. |
Antipsychotic nonadherence in schizophrenia (Haddad et al., 2014 review)
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Trends 2019 to 2026
Recent developments include Cobenfy’s approval in 2024, removal of the clozapine REMS program in 2025 and a Lancet Commission announced in 2026. Historical program counts document the expansion of early psychosis care from 2014 to 2021. Global prevalence estimates also vary between successive modeling rounds, so apparent changes need careful interpretation.
Growth in U.S. coordinated specialty care programs, 2014 to 2021
EPINET counted 59 U.S. coordinated specialty care programs in 2014, 145 in 2015, 170 in 2016, 214 in 2017, 240 in 2018 and 353 in 2021. That is a 498% increase from the 2014 baseline. The report gives federal set-aside funding of $45.7 million in 2015 and $82.5 million in 2021. Responding states reported 6,360 clients served in 2021, an incomplete national count. Separately, a 2026 claims analysis estimated median annual first-episode psychosis incidence at 80.54 per 100,000 privately insured people aged 15 to 40 and inferred a CSC access gap exceeding 90%.
| 23.6M to 23.18M | Global prevalent cases, GBD 2019 estimate versus GBD 2021 estimate The 2019 and 2021 GBD rounds use different model versions, so these totals alone do not establish a two-year decline. Within their respective rounds, global counts rose about 65% to 70% from 1990 while age-standardized estimates remained relatively stable; this does not mean every population’s risk was unchanged. |
| September 26, 2024 | FDA approval of xanomeline and trospium (Cobenfy), the first new class of schizophrenia medicine in several decades It targets muscarinic rather than dopamine receptors and cut PANSS scores by 9.6 and 8.4 points more than placebo in two five-week trials. The manufacturer cites 2.8 million Americans with schizophrenia and says up to 60% get inadequate improvement or intolerable side effects on existing drugs. |
| June 13, 2025 | FDA removed the clozapine REMS program FDA removed the restricted-distribution and reporting program effective June 13, 2025, concluding that labeling and routine safety surveillance could manage the risk. The agency still advises prescribers to monitor absolute neutrophil counts according to the prescribing information. |
| 88.0 to 23.8 weeks | Mean untreated psychosis duration in European studies published in 1991 to 2000 versus 2021 to 2022 The 2024 meta-analysis groups studies by publication period. The pooled means were 88.0 and 23.8 weeks, but the earlier estimate had a wide 95% confidence interval of 18.5 to 157.6 weeks. The comparison sets different study samples side by side and does not track one population over time. |
| -17% | Change in state-hospital beds occupied by civil patients per capita, 2016 to 2023 TAC reports a 17% decline in civil occupancy per 100,000 population. Its separate total of 12 state-hospital beds per 100,000 in 2023 includes civil and forensic use; the 50 per 100,000 figure is an expert planning benchmark and was never measured as the need for schizophrenia alone. |
| May 24, 2026 | Announcement of the Lancet Commission on schizophrenia and psychotic disorders Co-chaired by Marion Leboyer and Michael Berk and launched on World Schizophrenia Awareness Day, the Commission is due to report within three years. |
Timeline of the period
| Year | Development | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | GBD counts 23.6 million prevalent cases, 1.3 million new cases and 15.1 million DALYs worldwide | Solmi et al., 2023 |
| 2019 | Estimated U.S. excess economic burden is $343.2 billion; the earlier 2013 model estimated $155.7 billion using different methods | Kadakia et al., 2022 |
| 2021 | 353 coordinated specialty care programs operate across 48 states, DC and Puerto Rico | EPINET, 2022 |
| 2022 | 15.4 million U.S. adults (6.0%) have a serious mental illness; 66.7% receive treatment | NIMH |
| 2024 | FDA approves Cobenfy, the first schizophrenia antipsychotic targeting cholinergic rather than dopamine receptors | Bristol Myers Squibb |
| 2025 | FDA ends the clozapine REMS, effective June 13, 2025 | FDA |
| 2026 | Lancet Commission announced; WHO fact sheet updated to 27 million people worldwide | Fondation FondaMental · WHO |
Limits of the historical comparisons
The recovery review published in 2013 found no improvement across the historical studies it included; its search ended in October 2011 (Jääskeläinen et al., 2013). The 2018 diagnosis-disparity review found a persistent Black/White difference across three decades of included U.S. research (Olbert et al., 2018). Neither establishes that the same pattern continued unchanged through 2026. Medicare clozapine prescribing fell between 2015 and 2020 (PLOS One, 2025), before the 2025 REMS removal. Assessing that policy’s effect requires later utilization data and an analysis that accounts for other changes in prescribing.
Life expectancy and physical health
Physical illnesses contribute substantially to early mortality among people with schizophrenia. The studies below measure different outcomes: years of potential life lost, mortality risk ratios, metabolic conditions and recorded deaths in a hospital cohort. Keeping these measures distinct matters, because a population average is not a forecast for a particular person.
Years of potential life lost, weighted average across 11 studies on five continents
Hjorthøj and colleagues’ 2017 meta-analysis included 11 studies reported in 13 publications, covering five continents and up to 247,603 people. It estimated 14.5 years of potential life lost overall, 15.9 for men and 13.6 for women. Pooled life expectancy was 64.7 years overall, 59.9 for men and 67.6 for women. NIMH separately reports 28.5 years of potential life lost in a U.S. study published in 2015, while WHO’s September 11, 2026 fact sheet says nine years earlier. These summaries use different populations and measures; their differences do not establish a trend or predict an individual’s lifespan.
| 2.52x | All-cause mortality relative to people without schizophrenia The 2022 review included 135 studies and 4,536,447 people with schizophrenia overall. The 2.52 risk ratio came from 79 studies using mixed control groups, including people with other illnesses. The separate comparison with the general population was 2.94 across 57 studies. |
| 9.76x | Suicide mortality relative to the general population The 2022 meta-analysis pooled 28 studies for this comparison. Separately, Palmer and colleagues’ 2005 model estimated lifetime suicide mortality at 4.9%, with 5.6% in cohorts followed from illness onset or first admission. These are historical group estimates and predict nothing about any one individual. |
| 33.4% | Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in people with schizophrenia The 2015 review estimated schizophrenia-specific metabolic syndrome prevalence at 33.4% across 93 studies and 29,596 people. Its broader severe-mental-illness analyses found 47.2% among clozapine users and, in matched-control studies, 29.2% versus 18.1% in controls (risk ratio 1.58). |
| 2.15x | Odds of type 2 diabetes with a history of schizophrenia The 2024 review pooled 32 observational studies published from 2004 to 2023, including 2,007,168 people with schizophrenia and 35,883,980 without. Sex-specific odds ratios versus the respective non-schizophrenia comparison groups were 2.12 for women and 1.68 for men. |
| 7.2x and 3.3x | Odds of current smoking in men and women with schizophrenia versus general-population comparators The 2005 review reports an odds ratio of 7.2 across 32 male studies in 18 nations and 3.3 across 25 female studies in 15 nations. The odds ratios come from historical studies and do not measure smoking prevalence or current risk multipliers. |
| 58.97 years | Mean age at death among 123 deaths in a Romanian schizophrenia cohort The 2025 study followed 635 hospitalized patients for ten years and observed 21.3 deaths per 1,000 person-years. The authors compared mean age at death with national life expectancy to describe a roughly 17-year gap; that subtraction is not a life-table estimate for the cohort. |
Causes of death among 123 deaths in the Romanian cohort (hospitalized 2010 to 2013, followed for 10 years)
Care and the mortality gap
In the 2022 meta-analysis, antipsychotic use was associated with lower all-cause mortality than non-use (risk ratio 0.71), with stronger associations for some long-acting injectables and clozapine (Correll et al., 2022). These observational results do not determine how many years of the gap treatment can prevent. WHO identifies cardiovascular, metabolic and infectious conditions as contributors to early death (WHO, 2026). NIMH reports that one third of U.S. adults with serious mental illness received no mental health treatment in 2022 (NIMH), but that broad treatment measure does not measure access to physical-health care.
Common questions
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How we compiled this
Cite this source
Fontane Pennock, S. (2026, September 13). Schizophrenia Statistics 2026. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/schizophrenia-statistics/
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Talk it through with a licensed therapist
If psychosis, paranoia or a schizophrenia diagnosis is part of your life or someone else's, a licensed therapist can help you sort out what applies to you and what to do next. Browse license-verified therapists on the internet's original directory.
This page is educational information, not a diagnosis or a substitute for professional care. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 (U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), any time.