NONGENETIC FAMILIAL TRANSMISSION OF PSYCHIATRIC-DISORDERS - EVIDENCE FROM CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

There is considerable evidence that psychiatric disorders aggregate in families, a phenomenon for which both genetic and nongenetic explanat ions have been proposed. However, since genetic and social inheritance usually co-occur, it is difficult to separate out their effects. In t his paper, we argue that examining the rates of disorder among childre n of Holocaust survivors provides a special situation where genetic an d nongenetic factors in familial transmission can be separated, and wh ere specific nongenetic mechanisms can be tested. We specify competing hypotheses, and test their viability using data from an epidemiologic al study of psychiatric disorders conducted in Israel. We find no evid ence of higher symptom scale scores or higher rates of current psychia tric disorders for the children of Holocaust survivors. However, they did have higher rates of past disorders.