It was their recommendation that psychiatric genetics should be integrated with medical genetics rather than remaining an isolated field. They evaluated various mental disorders and decided that attention should be focused on the most promising targets for finding genes based on the strength of evidence for heritibility and other practical factors. They agreed that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder would be the best candidates for large-scale studies. The reasons are that the risk to first degree relatives is ten-times greater than the general population. Families with these disorders are numerous, have volunteered for studies and have contributed DNA samples.
Additional volunteers are ready to assist.
The fact that these diseases are frequently occurring in the population and pose medical, financial and sociological implications makes them a public health problem. The researchers considered major depression. In addition, the role of genes is not as clear. This is a larger percentage than it occurs in the general population. However, it does not occur frequently enough for a sufficient number of study samples to be collected.