Schizophrenia Facts:
The following information is taken from the book, Surviving Schizophrenia,
by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D
- Approximately 2.2 million Americans have schizophrenia in any given year. That is 8 persons out of every 1,000.
- At least 40 percent of them are not receiving treatment at any given time. Thus, there are approximately 900,000 individuals with schizophrenia who are not being treated.
- There are at least as many individuals with schizophrenia who are homeless, living on the streets, and in shelters, as there are in hospitals and related facilities.
- There are more individuals with schizophrenia in jails and state prisons than there are in all hospitals and related facilities.
- Individuals with schizophrenia are increasingly the victims of crimes, including robberies, assaults, rapes, and murders.
- Public psychiatric treatment services, housing , and rehabilitation services for individuals with schizophrenia are often grossly inadequate and, in many states, getting worse.
- The total direct and indirect costs of shizophrenia in the United States in 2000 were approximately $40 billion. That was more than the entire budgets of the National Institutes of Health and the VA combined.
- Approxmately $10 billion of that $40 billion was spent on federal disability payments (SSI and SSDI) for individuals with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia was the single largest diagnosis for individuals receiving both SSI and SSDI.