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Background: There is a higher prevalence of schizophrenia in individuals born in urban settings, an observation that led to the proposition that urbanicity acts as an environmental risk factor for schizophrenia. This effect may be confounded by a shared genetic aetiology between these traits and thus individuals born in cities may be at higher risk because their parents are predisposed to both schizophrenia and urban living. Previous studies have demonstrated an association between schizophrenia genetics and living in cities during adulthood, however, they have failed to address whether genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with birthplace urbanicity or a tendency to move from a rural birthplace to live in urban areas.

Methods: We performed our analysis in the UK Biobank (UKB) cohort by cross-referencing address coordinates with external demographic sources. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia were …