I think this is probably the same report we have mentioned previously, but since we have so many new readers lately and a lot of recent news on Bhutanese (Nepalese) refugees, it’s best to repeat it rather than to have some readers not know about it.
For several reasons, mostly joblessness and family stress over money, Bhutanese refugees are killing themselves at higher rates than most people in the world. Tell me again why we are going to legalize 11 million illegal aliens and bring in more immigrants when legal refugees can’t find work? And, why are resettlement agencies actually lobbying for more job competition for their own refugees?
From the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) for the week of July 5, 2013:
During the period February 2009–February 2012, the Office of Refugee Resettlement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported 16 suicides among the approximately 57,000 Bhutanese refugees who had resettled in the United States since 2008. In 2012, the office requested assistance from CDC and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Refugee Health Technical Assistance Center to identify risk factors that might be associated with suicidal ideation among Bhutanese refugees. In collaboration with the Massachusetts refugee health center, CDC conducted a survey of randomly selected Bhutanese refugees in four U.S. states with large populations of resettled refugees*. The results indicated significant associations between ever having expressed suicidal ideation and current self-reported symptoms of mental health disorder (e.g., anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder) and postmigration difficulties (e.g., family conflict or inability to find work). The findings highlight the need for development of culturally appropriate community-based interventions for suicide prevention and standard procedures for monitoring and reporting suicides and suicide attempts in the Bhutanese refugee population.
They killed themselves in Nepal at a pretty high rate too (must be something in their culture, or, LOL! in their genetic makeup?)
….the annual suicide rate among Bhutanese refugees resettled in the United States was calculated by investigators as 21.5 per 100,000; the age-adjusted suicide rate using the U.S. 2000 population as the standard was 24.4 per 100,000. Both estimates were higher than the estimated annual global suicide rate for all persons of 16.0 per 100,000 (1) and the annual suicide rate for U.S. residents of 12.4 per 100,000 (2), but were similar to the prearrival suicide rate in Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal of 20.7 per 100,000 (3).
*The four states are these: Arizona, Georgia, New York, and Texas. But, since we have brought nearly 70,000 Bhutanese to the US, there are many other resettlement states experiencing challenges with joblessness and just plain overload of George Bush’s refugees. Yesterday, we heard from Bhutanese in Manchester, NH, here.
Photo: There are many more photos of Bhutanese refugees in Atlanta, here, along with a story about them.
