A series of Médecins Sans Frontières projects for irregular migrants over the past decade have consistently documented high rates of 14 physical and sexual trauma, extortion and mental illness amidst severe he...
Authors: Kevin Pottie, Jorge Pedro Martin, Stephen Cornish, Linn Maria Biorklund, Ivan Gayton, Frank Doerner and Fabien Schneider
The World Health Organization proposes 6 building blocks for health systems. These are vulnerable to challenges in many contexts. Findings from a 2004 assessment of the health system in Mali for diabetes care ...
Authors: Stéphane Besançon, Ibrahima-Soce Fall, Mathieu Doré, Assa Sidibé, Olivier Hagon, François Chappuis and David Beran
Destruction of health systems in fragile and conflict-affected states increases civilian mortality. Despite the size, scope, scale and political influence of international security forces intervening in fragil...
Authors: Margaret Bourdeaux, Vanessa Kerry, Christian Haggenmiller and Karlheinz Nickel
Shoklo Malaria Research Unit has been providing health care in remote clinics on the Thai-Myanmar border to refugee and migrant populations since 1986 and 1995, respectively. Clinics are staffed by local healt...
Authors: Lilian Stanley, Thaw Htwe Min, Hla Hla Than, Marie Stolbrink, Kathryn McGregor, Cindy Chu, François H Nosten and Rose McGready
The flight of Syrian and Palestinian families into Lebanon from Syria included a number of older refugees. This study sought to characterize the physical and emotional conditions, dietary habits, coping practi...
Authors: Jonathan Strong, Christopher Varady, Najla Chahda, Shannon Doocy and Gilbert Burnham
Global health policy and development aid trends also affect humanitarian health work. Reconstruction, rehabilitation and development initiatives start increasingly earlier after crisis, unleashing tensions bet...
The burden of neuropsychiatric disorders in refugees is likely high, but little has been reported on the neuropsychiatric disorders that affect Syrian and Iraqi refugees in a country of first asylum. This anal...
Authors: Erica D McKenzie, Paul Spiegel, Adam Khalifa and Farrah J Mateen
For over a decade, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Public Health and its international development partners have invested in strengthening the national health workforce and establishing a system of primary health ca...
Authors: Manizha Faqir, Partamin Zainullah, Hannah Tappis, Jaime Mungia, Sheena Currie and Young Mi Kim
After more than three years of violence in Syria, Lebanon hosts over one million Syrian refugees creating significant public health concerns. Antenatal care delivery to tens of thousands of pregnant Syrian ref...
Authors: Matthew Benage, P Gregg Greenough, Patrick Vinck, Nada Omeira and Phuong Pham
In Burma, severe human rights violations, civil conflict, and the persecution of ethnic and linguistic minority populations has resulted in the displacement of millions of people, many of whom now reside as in...
Authors: Jillian Gedeon, Saw Nanda Hsue, Meredith Walsh, Cari Sietstra, Hay MarSan and Angel M Foster
A humanitarian emergency involves a complete breakdown of authority that often disrupts routine health care delivery, including immunization. Diarrheal diseases are a principal cause of morbidity and mortality...
Authors: Lisa M Gargano, Jacqueline E Tate, Umesh D Parashar, Saad B Omer and Susan T Cookson
Globally mental health problems are a serious public health concern. Currently four out of five people with severe mental illness in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) receive no effective treatment. There...
Authors: Nagendra P Luitel, Mark JD Jordans, Anup Adhikari, Nawaraj Upadhaya, Charlotte Hanlon, Crick Lund and Ivan H Komproe
Global Health Initiatives (GHIs) respond to high-impact communicable diseases in resource-poor countries, including health systems support, and are major actors in global health. GHIs could play an important r...
Authors: Preeti Patel, Rachael Cummings and Bayard Roberts
The Minimum Initial Services Package (MISP) for reproductive health, a standard of care in humanitarian emergencies, is a coordinated set of priority activities developed to prevent excess morbidity and mortal...
Authors: Sandra Krause, Holly Williams, Monica A Onyango, Samira Sami, Wilma Doedens, Noreen Giga, Erin Stone and Barbara Tomczyk
Reproductive health (RH) care is an essential component of humanitarian response. Women and girls living in humanitarian settings often face high maternal mortality and are vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy, un...
Authors: Sara E Casey, Sarah K Chynoweth, Nadine Cornier, Meghan C Gallagher and Erin E Wheeler
The Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises conducted a ten-year global evaluation of reproductive health in humanitarian settings. This paper examines proposals for reproductive health act...
Authors: Mihoko Tanabe, Kristen Schaus, Sonia Rastogi, Sandra K Krause and Preeti Patel
Provision of reproductive health (RH) services is a minimum standard of health care in humanitarian settings; however access to these services is often limited. This systematic review, one component of a globa...
Previous studies show that health systems governance influences health system performance and health outcomes. However, there are few examples of how to implement and monitor good governing practices in fragil...
Authors: Zelaikha Anwari, Mahesh Shukla, Basir Ahmad Maseed, Ghulam Farooq Mukhlis Wardak, Sakhi Sardar, Javid Matin, Ghulam Sayed Rashed, Sayed Amin Hamedi, Hedayatullah Sahak, Abdul Hakim Aziz, Mariah Boyd-Boffa and Reshma Trasi
Between the late 1980s and 2000s, Northern Uganda experienced over twenty years of armed conflict between the Government of Uganda and Lord’s Resistance Army. The resulting humanitarian crisis led to displacem...
Authors: Olushayo Olu, Abdulmumini Usman, Solomon Woldetsadik, Dick Chamla and Oladapo Walker
Afghanistan is a country that has been in conflict for decades, resulting in the destruction of much of its social infrastructure including the health system. In 2003, after the intervention of US-led NATO for...
Authors: Said Ahmad Maisam Najafizada, Ronald Labonté and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault
The eastern part of India has been affected by an ongoing low-intensity conflict between government forces and armed Maoist groups, known as Naxalites. Since 2006, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been provi...
Authors: Edward Armstrong, Mrinalini Das, Homa Mansoor, Ramesh B Babu and Petros Isaakidis
Through the Balanced Scorecard program there have been independent, annual and nationwide assessments of the Afghan health system from 2004 to 2013. During this period, Afghanistan remained in a dynamic state ...
Authors: Jack S Rowe, Kayhan Natiq, Olakunle Alonge, Shivam Gupta, Anubhav Agarwal and David H Peters
Attacks on health care in armed conflict and other civil disturbances, including those on health workers, health facilities, patients and health transports, represent a critical yet often overlooked violation ...
Authors: Rohini J Haar, Katherine HA Footer, Sonal Singh, Susan G Sherman, Casey Branchini, Joshua Sclar, Emily Clouse and Leonard S Rubenstein
Sri Lanka has recently emerged from nearly three decades of protracted conflict, which came to an end five years ago in 2009. A number of researchers have explored the devastating effect the conflict has had o...
Authors: Chesmal Siriwardhana and Kolitha Wickramage
Access to health services in Afghanistan has expanded in the last decade; however, gaps in care quality and outcomes of care remain a challenge. Recognizing these gaps, in 2009 the USAID Health Care Improvemen...
Authors: Mirwais Rahimzai, Ahmad Jan Naeem, Silvia Holschneider and Ahmad Kamran Hekmati
Definitions of fragile states focus on state willingness and capacity to ensure security and provide essential services, including health. Conventional analyses and subsequent policies that focus on state-deli...
Authors: Peter S Hill, Enrico Pavignani, Markus Michael, Maurizio Murru and Mark E Beesley
The post-conflict or post-crisis period provides the opportunity for wide-ranging public sector reforms: donors fund rebuilding and reform efforts, social norms are in a state of flux, and the political climat...
Authors: Valerie Percival, Esther Richards, Tammy MacLean and Sally Theobald
In post-conflict settings, severe disruption to health systems invariably leaves populations at high risk of disease and in greater need of health provision than more stable resource-poor countries. The health...
Authors: Edward Roome, Joanna Raven and Tim Martineau
The evolving concept of peace-building and the interplay between peace and health is examined in many venues, including at the World Health Assembly. However, without a metric to determine effectiveness of int...
Authors: Howard Zucker, Roy Ahn, Samuel Justin Sinclair, Mark Blais, Brett D Nelson and Thomas F Burke
In the last few decades, Iraq’s health care capacity has been severely undermined by the effects of different wars, international sanctions, sectarian violence and political instability. In the aftermath of th...
Fragile and Conflict Affected States present difficult contexts to achieve health system outcomes and are neglected in health systems research. This report presents key debates from the Consultation of the Col...
Authors: Joanna Raven, Tim Martineau, Eleanor MacPherson, Amuda Baba Dieu-Merci, Sarah Ssali, Steve Torr and Sally Theobald
The rising global burden of forced migration due to armed conflict is increasingly recognised as an important issue in global health. Forced migrants are at a greater risk of developing mental disorders. Howev...
Authors: Chesmal Siriwardhana, Shirwa Sheik Ali, Bayard Roberts and Robert Stewart
The aim of this paper is to explore women’s perceptions of the causes of intimate partner violence (IPV) in West Africa, and the ways in which they understand these causes to interact with the experiences of war.
Authors: Rebecca Horn, Eve S Puffer, Elisabeth Roesch and Heidi Lehmann
It is recognized that decisions taken in the early recovery period may affect the development of health systems. Additionally, some suggest that the immediate post-conflict period may allow for the opening of ...
Authors: Maria Paola Bertone, Mohamed Samai, Joseph Edem-Hotah and Sophie Witter
Gender-based violence (GBV) is prevalent among, though not specific to, conflict affected populations and related to multifarious levels of vulnerability of conflict and displacement. Colombia has been marked ...
Authors: Andrea L Wirtz, Kiemanh Pham, Nancy Glass, Saskia Loochkartt, Teemar Kidane, Decssy Cuspoca, Leonard S Rubenstein, Sonal Singh and Alexander Vu
Although measles mortality has declined dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa, measles remains a major public health problem in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Here, we describe the large m...
Authors: Silvia Mancini, Matthew E Coldiron, Axelle Ronsse, Benoît Kebela Ilunga, Klaudia Porten and Rebecca F Grais
Over 40% of all deaths among children under 5 are neonatal deaths (0–28 days), and this proportion is increasing. In 2012, 2.9 million newborns died, with 99% occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Man...
Authors: Diane F Morof, Kate Kerber, Barbara Tomczyk, Joy Lawn, Curtis Blanton, Samira Sami and Ribka Amsalu
Human security shifts traditional concepts of security from interstate conflict and the absence of war to the security of the individual. Broad definitions of human security include livelihoods and food securi...
Authors: Parveen Kaur Parmar, Pooja Agrawal, Ravi Goyal, Jennifer Scott and P Gregg Greenough
Reintegration programs are commonly offered to former combatants and abductees to acquire civilian status and support services to reintegrate into post-conflict society. Among a group of young female abductees...
Authors: Katherine A Muldoon, Godfrey Muzaaya, Theresa S Betancourt, Mirriam Ajok, Monica Akello, Zaira Petruf, Paul Nguyen, Erin K Baines and Kate Shannon
The final months of the conflict in Sri Lanka in 2009 resulted in massive displacement of the civilian population and a high volume of orthopedic trauma including spinal cord injury. In response to this need, ...
Authors: Jo C Armstrong, Brooke E Nichols, Joan M Wilson, Roy A Cosico and Leslie Shanks
Afghanistan has faced health consequences of war including those due to displacement of populations, breakdown of health and social services, and increased risks of disease transmission for over three decades....
Authors: Khaled Seddiq, Donald A Enarson, Karam Shah, Zaeem Haq and Wasiq M Khan
Following the contested national elections in 2007, violence occurred throughout Kenya. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence, characteristics, and health consequences of the 2007–2008 elect...
Authors: Kirsten Johnson, Jennifer Scott, Treny Sasyniuk, David Ndetei, Michael Kisielewski, Shada Rouhani, Susan Bartels, Victoria Mutiso, Anne Mbwayo, David Rae and Lynn Lawry
Widespread violence followed the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya resulting in the deaths of a reported 1,133 people and the displacement of approximately 660,000 others. At the time of the crisis the Unit...
Authors: Suzanne Goodrich, Samson Ndege, Sylvester Kimaiyo, Hosea Some, Juddy Wachira, Paula Braitstein, John E Sidle, Jackline Sitienei, Regina Owino, Cleophas Chesoli, Catherine Gichunge, Fanice Komen, Claris Ojwang, Edwin Sang, Abraham Siika and Kara Wools-Kaloustian
Communities in South Sudan have endured decades of conflict. Protracted conflict exacerbated reproductive health disparities and gender inequities. This study, conducted prior to the country’s 2011 independenc...
Authors: Jennifer Scott, Sarah Averbach, Anna Merport Modest, Michele Hacker, Sarah Cornish, Danielle Spencer, Maureen Murphy and Parveen Parmar
Mental health problems, particularly anxiety and mood disorders, are prevalent in the setting of humanitarian emergencies, both natural and man-made disasters. Evidence regarding best strategies for therapeuti...
Authors: Matthew E Coldiron, Augusto E Llosa, Thomas Roederer, German Casas and Marie-Rose Moro
