Hepatitis B prevalence and treatment needs among Tibetan refugees residing in India.

Untreated chronic hepatitis B can lead to liver failure and/or liver cancer. These complications can be avoided through prevention with vaccination or treatment of disease. To inform health policy for the Tibetan community in India, we conducted study of hepatitis B prevalence and treatment needs. We conducted a cross-sectional study over 3 months of 2013. Households were randomly selected for participation via a satellite map; one boarding school and one residential monastery were also included. Participants were asked questions and a whole blood sample was collected for HBsAg assay. Participants with a positive HBsAg result were tested for hepatitis B e antigen, ALT, and AST. Participants with a negative HBsAg result were tested for anti-hepatitis B core antibodies. We recruited 2,769 participants; of which 247 (8.9%) were positive for HBsAg. Participants more likely to have a positive HBsAg result were those born in Tibet (12.4%) and aged 30-59 years old. Of those with a positive HBsAg result, 60.7% were positive for hepatitis B e antigen 7% of whom fit into a likely treatment-needed category; the others fit into management categories requiring repeat ALT testing with or without liver fibrosis assessment. Among participants negative for HBsAg, 52.9% from household sampling had anti-HBc antibodies. We identified a high endemicity of chronic hepatitis B in a Tibetan community in India. Resource appropriate approaches are needed for managing chronic hepatitis B in settings such as this one. J. Med. Virol. 88:1357-1363, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

People with mental illness stigmatize mental illness less: A comparison study between a hospital-based sample of people with mental illness and a non-clinical general population sample in urban India.

Evidence shows that stigma negatively influences the quality of life of persons with severe mental illness. Nonetheless, stigma towards mental illness is lower among persons with a lived experience of mental illness compared to the rest of the population. Understanding the association between stigma of mental illness and the mental status of individuals living in urban India and whether this association is moderated by demographic factors opens a new avenue for prevention of social exclusion. Persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe unipolar depression (cases, n = 647) were recruited from among hospital patients in New Delhi between November 2011 and June 2012 and matched with non-psychiatric urban dwellers by age, sex, and location of residence (controls, n = 649). Propensity score matching with multivariable linear regression was used to test whether stigma towards mental illness, measured by a 13-item Stigma Questionnaire, differed between cases and controls. Cases reported significantly lower stigma scores than controls (b = -0.50, p < 0.0001). The strength of the association between mental illness and stigma was not affected after controlling for age, caste, sex, education, and employment status, while wealth marginally reduced the strength of the association. These findings suggest individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, in New Delhi, India, may be more tolerant towards mental illness and support the need to involve persons with lived experience in the development and implementation of health promotional campaigns and programs aimed at reducing stigma towards mental illness.