Tibetans in exile show high rates of depression / NewScientist.com news service, 10 April 2008
URL http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/dn13637-tibetans-in-exile-show-high-rates-of-depression.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

Has becoming part of China improved the health of Tibetans?

The Tibetan government in exile would say absolutely not – their figures indicate that 1.2 million Tibetans have died as a result of Chinese occupation.

China says its investments have seen medical improvements for Tibetans, but without health statistics this is hard to verify. Now a survey of Tibetan refugees has provided hard data.

The survey finds that refugees fleeing Tibet have higher levels of depression and anxiety than Tibetans born and raised in relatively stable exile communities in India and Nepal. But even Tibetans born in exile have questionnaire scores that classify them as "depressed".

"The results highlight the cost of the ongoing human-rights crisis within Tibet in human emotional suffering," says lead researcher Charles Raison, from the Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.