Articles

Correction to: Introduction to collection: confronting the challenges of health research in humanitarian crises

Authors: Amit S. Mistry, Brandon A. Kohrt, Blythe Beecroft, Nalini Anand and Iman Nuwayhid

Surveys about attended births appear to be deceptive in CAR: are the population saying what they think NGO’s want to hear?

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donors often promote certain practices to a community, such as in-facility births and then evaluate the efficacy of those interventions, in part, by surveying those po...

Authors: Philippe Wol, Christina Kay and Leslie Roberts

Lockdowns, lives and livelihoods: the impact of COVID-19 and public health responses to conflict affected populations - a remote qualitative study in Baidoa and Mogadishu, Somalia

Authorities in Somalia responded with drastic measures after the first confirmed COVID-19 case in mid-March 2020, closing borders, schools, limiting travel and prohibiting most group functions. However, the im...

Authors: Dorien H. Braam, Sharath Srinivasan, Luke Church, Zakaria Sheikh, Freya L. Jephcott and Salome Bukachi

Correction to: Musculoskeletal impairment among Syrian refugees living in Sultanbeyli, Turkey: prevalence, cause, diagnosis and need for related services and assistive products

Authors: Dorothy Boggs, Oluwarantimi Atijosan-Ayodele, Hisem Yonso, Nathaniel Scherer, Timothy O’Fallon, Gülten Deniz, Selin Volkan, Ahmed Örücü, Isotta Pivato, Ammar Hasan Beck, İbrahim Akıncı, Hannah Kuper, Allen Foster, Andrea Patterson and Sarah Polack

“I try the one that they say is good.” - factors influencing choice of health care provider and pathways to diabetes care for Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Navigating health systems in host countries can be a challenge for refugees, particularly in a multi-provider system such as Lebanon. Syrian refugees in Lebanon face a high burden of Non-Communicable Diseases ...

Authors: Flora Haderer, Emilie Venables, Josefien van Olmen, Miriam Orcutt, Michella Ghassibe-Sabbagh and Wilma van den Boogaard

Health-related quality of life of refugees: a systematic review of studies using the WHOQOL-Bref instrument in general and clinical refugee populations in the community setting

To systematically review studies on HRQOL, measured by the WHOQOL-Bref instrument, of refugees in general and clinical populations who are settled in the community of the hosting country, and outline the diffe...

Authors: Juliette Gagliardi, Christian Brettschneider and Hans-Helmut König

Legacies of humanitarian neglect: long term experiences of children who returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda

Much has been written about the short-term challenges facing children returning ‘home’ from rebel fighting groups, but little is known about the longer term day to day realities of return. This article present...

Authors: Melissa Parker, Cristin A. Fergus, Charlotte Brown, Dorothy Atim, James Ocitti, Jackline Atingo and Tim Allen

Conflict-related violence and mental health among self-settled Democratic Republic of Congo female refugees in Kampala, Uganda – a respondent driven sampling survey

Violence and traumatic events are highly prevalent among refugees, but less is known about the impact of these experiences among self-settled refugees in the country of asylum. We evaluated the association bet...

Authors: Itziar Familiar, Pamela Nasirumbi Muniina, Chris Dolan, Moses Ogwal, David Serwadda, Herbert Kiyingi, Chantal Siya Bahinduka, Enos Sande and Wolfgang Hladik

Improving diabetes control for Syrian refugees in Jordan: a longitudinal cohort study comparing the effects of cash transfers and health education interventions

Cash transfers are an increasingly common intervention in the Syrian refugee response to meet basic needs, though there is little known of their potential secondary impact on health outcomes in humanitarian se...

Authors: By Emily Lyles, Stephen Chua, Yasmeen Barham, Kayla Pfieffer-Mundt, Paul Spiegel, Ann Burton and Shannon Doocy

Adolescent access to health services in fragile and conflict-affected contexts: The case of the Gaza Strip

Enjoyment of physical and mental health is not only recognized as a human right but also as an integral part of development, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 3 – to ensure healthy lives and promote...

Authors: Bassam Abu Hamad, Nicola Jones and Ingrid Gercama

Tools for measuring gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE) indicators in humanitarian settings

Effective measurement of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) is challenging in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), and even more so in humanitarian settings. Conflict, natural disasters, and ep...

Authors: Céline M. Goulart, Amber Purewal, Humaira Nakhuda, Anita Ampadu, Amanda Giancola, Jean-Luc Kortenaar and Diego G. Bassani

Introduction to collection: confronting the challenges of health research in humanitarian crises

Humanitarian crises, such as armed conflict, forced displacement, natural disasters, and major disease outbreaks, take a staggering toll on human health, especially in low-resource settings. Yet there is a dea...

Authors: Amit S. Mistry, Brandon A. Kohrt, Blythe Beecroft, Nalini Anand and Iman Nuwayhid

Violence against healthcare in conflict: a systematic review of the literature and agenda for future research

Attacks on health care in armed conflict, including those on health workers, facilities, patients and transports, represent serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Information ab...

Authors: Rohini J. Haar, Róisín Read, Larissa Fast, Karl Blanchet, Stephanie Rinaldi, Bertrand Taithe, Christina Wille and Leonard S. Rubenstein

Policies on return and reintegration of displaced healthcare workers towards rebuilding conflict-affected health systems: a review for The Lancet-AUB Commission on Syria

War and armed conflicts severely disrupt all health system components, including the healthcare workforce. Although data is limited on the scale of health care worker (HCW) displacement in conflict zones, it i...

Authors: Diana Rayes, Lana Meiqari, Rouham Yamout, Aula Abbara, Iman Nuwayhid, Samer Jabbour and Marian Abouzeid

An exploratory pilot study of the effect of modified hygiene kits on handwashing with soap among internally displaced persons in Ethiopia

Internally displaced persons fleeing their homes due to conflict and drought are particularly at risk of morbidity and mortality from diarrhoeal diseases. Regular handwashing with soap (HWWS) could substantial...

Authors: Astrid Hasund Thorseth, Thomas Heath, Andualem Sisay, Mare Hamo and Sian White

COVID-19 in conflict border regions: a case of South Kordofan, Sudan

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported in Sudan on 13 March 2020. Since then, Sudan has experienced one of the highest rates of COVID-19 spread and fatalities in Africa. One year later, as...

Authors: Quraish Sserwanja, Mohammed Bashir Adam, Joseph Kawuki and Emmanuel Olal

“Strengthening data quality and reporting from small-scale surveys in humanitarian settings: a case study from Yemen, 2011–2019”

Under-five death rate is one of the major indicators used in assessing the level of needs and severity of humanitarian crisis. Over the years, a number of small-scale surveys based on Standardized Monitoring a...

Authors: Thomas Jideofor Ogbu and Debarati Guha-Sapir

Migrant children in transit: health profile and social needs of unaccompanied and accompanied children visiting the MSF clinic in Belgrade, Serbia

Thousands of children migrate to Europe each year in search of safety and the promise of a better life. Many of them transited through Serbia in 2018. Children journey alone or along with their family members ...

Authors: Tijana Topalovic, Maria Episkopou, Erin Schillberg, Jelena Brcanski and Milica Jocic

Conducting research on building psychosocial support for Syrian refugee families in a humanitarian emergency

This case study describes research, which is located in Turkey, where more than 750,000 Syrian refugees reside autonomously in Istanbul. The research developed and pilot tested a novel model for helping urban ...

Authors: Stevan Merill Weine, Aliriza Arënliu, Vahdet Görmez, Scott Lagenecker and Hakan Demirtas

Lay-delivered talk therapies for adults affected by humanitarian crises in low- and middle-income countries

Published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2015, the mental health Gap Action Programme Humanitarian Intervention Guide (mhGAP-HIG) recommends...

Authors: Grace K. Ryan, Andreas Bauer, Tarik Endale, Onaiza Qureshi, Asmae Doukani, Arlinda Cerga-Pashoja, Savvy K. Brar, Julian Eaton and Judith K. Bass

Musculoskeletal impairment among Syrian refugees living in Sultanbeyli, Turkey: prevalence, cause, diagnosis and need for related services and assistive products

Epidemiological data on musculoskeletal impairment (MSI) and related service and assistive product (AP) needs for displaced populations are lacking. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence, aetiology, and ...

Authors: Dorothy Boggs, Oluwarantimi Atijosan-Ayodele, Hisem Yonso, Nathaniel Scherer, Timothy O’Fallon, Gülten Deniz, Selin Volkan, Ahmed Örücü, Isotta Pivato, Ammar Hasan Beck, İbrahim Akıncı, Hannah Kuper, Allen Foster, Andrea Patterson and Sarah Polack

‘We need someone to deliver our voices’: reflections from conducting remote qualitative research in Syria

The need to generate evidence in spaces considered insecure and inhabited by potentially extremely vulnerable individuals (e.g. conflict-affected people who may not have means to move) has led researchers to s...

Authors: Yazan Douedari, Mervat Alhaffar, Diane Duclos, Mohamed Al-Twaish, Samer Jabbour and Natasha Howard

Lessons learned from implementation of a national hotline for Ebola virus disease emergency preparedness in South Sudan

The world’s second largest Ebola outbreak occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2018 to 2020. At the time, risk of cross-border spread into South Sudan was very high. Thus, the South Sudan Ministry...

Authors: Velma K. Lopez, Sharmila Shetty, Angelo Thon Kouch, Matthew Tut Khol, Richard Lako, Alexandre Bili, Anyang David Ayuen, Agnes Jukudu, Ajak Ater Kug, Atem David Mayen, Emmanuel Nyawel, Kibebu Berta, Olushayo Olu, Kevin Clarke and Sudhir Bunga

Escaping the past and living in the present: a qualitative exploration of substance use among Syrian male refugees in Germany

Syrians have been the largest group of refugees in Germany since 2014. Little is known about Syrian refugees` perspectives on substance use. The aim of this study is to investigate the perspective of male refu...

Authors: Jutta Lindert, Ulrike Neuendorf, Marta Natan and Ingo Schäfer

Healthcare governance during humanitarian responses: a survey of current practice among international humanitarian actors

Large international humanitarian actors support and directly deliver health services for millions of people in crises annually, and wield considerable power to decide which health services to provide, how and ...

Authors: Prudence Jarrett, Yasin Fozdar, Nada Abdelmagid and Francesco Checchi

Intimate partner violence against women on the Colombia Ecuador border: a mixed-methods analysis of the liminal migrant experience

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious long-term health and psychological consequences and is highly prevalent in Latin America and among displaced populations. Liminality - the ambiguous in-between state...

Authors: Colleen Keating, Sarah Treves-Kagan and Ana Maria Buller

Working short and working long: can primary healthcare be protected as a public good in Lebanon today?

In this commentary we propose four questions to be addressed while building a meaningful public primary healthcare response in Lebanon today. These questions emerge from two imperatives: the necessity to consi...

Authors: Randa Sami Hamadeh, Ola Kdouh, Rawan Hammoud, Enrica Leresche and Jennifer Leaning

Sexual and reproductive health self-care in humanitarian and fragile settings: where should we start?

Recent crises have accelerated global interest in self-care interventions. This debate paper aims to raise the issue of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) self-care and invites members of the global communit...

Authors: Nguyen Toan Tran, Hannah Tappis, Pierre Moon, Megan Christofield and Angela Dawson

The socioeconomic burden of antibiotic resistance in conflict-affected settings and refugee hosting countries: a systematic scoping review

Antibiotic resistance (ABR) is a major global threat. Armed and protracted conflicts act as multipliers of infection and ABR, thus leading to increased healthcare and societal costs. We aimed to understand and...

Authors: Elsa Kobeissi, Marilyne Menassa, Krystel Moussally, Ernestina Repetto, Ismail Soboh, Marwan Hajjar, Shadi Saleh and Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Strengthening healthcare providers’ capacity for safe abortion and post-abortion care services in humanitarian settings: lessons learned from the clinical outreach refresher training model (S-CORT) in Uganda, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Fragile and crisis-affected countries account for most maternal deaths worldwide, with unsafe abortion being one of its leading causes. This case study aims to describe the Clinical Outreach Refresher Training...

Authors: Nguyen Toan Tran, Alison Greer, Talemoh Dah, Bibiche Malilo, Bergson Kakule, Thérèse Faila Morisho, Douglass Kambale Asifiwe, Happiness Musa, Japheth Simon, Janet Meyers, Elizabeth Noznesky, Sarah Neusy, Burim Vranovci and Bill Powell

Mental health and psychosocial support in conflict: children’s protection concerns and intervention outcomes in Syria

Child protection and mental health during conflict intersects with a variety of adverse conflict-related factors, and intervention outcomes in the field are often difficult to predict. Using the casefiles of 3...

Authors: Nada Raslan, Arran Hamlet and Veena Kumari

Complex emergencies and the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases in Africa: developing a practical approach for implementing safe and effective mapping and intervention strategies

Complex emergencies resulting from conflict and political instability are a major challenge for national neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) control and elimination programmes, especially in sub-Saharan Africa....

Authors: Louise A. Kelly-Hope, Angelia M. Sanders, Emma Harding-Esch, Johan Willems, Fatima Ahmed, Fiona Vincer and Rebecca Hill

Humanitarian led community-based surveillance: case study in Ekondo-titi, Cameroon

Community-based surveillance (CBS) has been used successfully in many situations to strengthen existing health systems as well as in humanitarian crises. The Anglophone crisis of Northwest Southwest Cameroon, ...

Authors: Alain Metuge, Lundi-Anne Omam, Elizabeth Jarman and Esther Omam Njomo

Setting research priorities for sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health in humanitarian settings

An estimated 70.8 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, 75% of whom are women and children. Prioritizing a global research agenda to inform guidance, service delivery, access to and quality of servi...

Authors: Loulou Kobeissi, Mahalakshmi Nair, Egmond Samir Evers, Mansuk Daniel Han, Samira Aboubaker, Lale Say, Nigel Rollins, Gary L. Darmstadt, Karl Blanchet, Daniel Martinez Garcia, Olivier Hagon and Per Ashorn

Reproductive health at conflict borders: a cross-sectional survey of human rights violations and perinatal outcomes at the Thai-Myanmar border

Human rights violations (HRVs) are common in conflict and displacement contexts. Women are especially vulnerable to HRVs in these contexts, and perinatal health is acutely sensitive to related stressors and he...

Authors: Stephanie M. Koning, Kaylee Scott, James H. Conway and Mari Palta

Assessing exposure to war-related traumatic events in older Vietnamese war survivors

Though studies measuring war-related stressors and resultant trauma among U.S. military veterans are abundant, few studies address how wartime stressors affect military veterans native to warzones. Even fewer ...

Authors: Yvette Young, Kim Korinek, Zachary Zimmer and Tran Khanh Toan

Vulnerability of Syrian refugees in Lebanon to COVID-19: quantitative insights

Lebanon, a middle-income country with ongoing political turmoil, unstable economic situation, and a fragmented and under-resourced health system, hosts about one million Syrian refugees since 2011. While the c...

Authors: Fouad M. Fouad, Stephen J. McCall, Houssein Ayoub, Laith J. Abu-Raddad and Ghina R. Mumtaz

Pre-positioning an evaluation of cash assistance programming in an acute emergency: strategies and lessons learned from a study in Raqqa Governorate, Syria

Conducting ethical and rigorous research to measure the effectiveness of humanitarian programs is urgently needed given the global level of displacement and conflict, yet traditional approaches to evaluation r...

Authors: Kathryn Falb and Jeannie Annan

Correction to: The relationship between armed conflict and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition status and services in northeastern Nigeria: a mixed-methods case study

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Jennifer A. Tyndall, Khadidiatou Ndiaye, Chinwenwo Weli, Eskedar Dejene, Nwanneamaka Ume, Victory Inyang, Christiana Okere, John Sandberg and Ronald J. Waldman

Innovative strategies for providing menstruation-supportive water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities: learning from refugee camps in Cox’s bazar, Bangladesh

There is growing attention to addressing the menstrual hygiene management (MHM) needs of the over 21 million displaced adolescent girls and women globally. Current approaches to MHM-related humanitarian progra...

Authors: Margaret L. Schmitt, Olivia R. Wood, David Clatworthy, Sabina Faiz Rashid and Marni Sommer

Operational considerations for the management of non-communicable diseases in humanitarian emergencies

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) represent an increasing global challenge with the majority of mortality occurring in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Concurrently, many humanitarian crises occur in th...

Authors: F. Jacquerioz Bausch, D. Beran, H. Hering, P. Boulle, F. Chappuis, C. Dromer, P. Saaristo and S. Aebischer Perone

The effect of the ongoing civil strife on key immunisation outcomes in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon

Civil strife has long been recognized as a significant barrier in the fight against vaccine preventable diseases in several parts of the world. However, little is known about the impact of the ongoing civil st...

Authors: Yauba Saidu, Marius Vouking, Andreas Ateke Njoh, Hassan Ben Bachire, Calvin Tonga, Roberts Mofor, Christain Bayiha, Leonard Ewane, Chebo Cornelius, Ndi Daniel Daddy Mbida, Messang Blandine Abizou, Victor Mbome Njie and Divine Nzuobontane

Quality in crisis: a systematic review of the quality of health systems in humanitarian settings

There is a growing concern that the quality of health systems in humanitarian crises and the care they provide has received little attention. To help better understand current practice and research on health s...

Authors: Keely Jordan, Todd P. Lewis and Bayard Roberts

A qualitative study on health care providers’ experiences of providing comprehensive abortion care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Humanitarian settings are characterised by limited access to comprehensive abortion care. At the same time, humanitarian settings can increase the vulnerability of women and girls to unintended pregnancies and...

Authors: Maria Persson, Elin C. Larsson, Noor Pappu Islam, Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson and Marie Klingberg-Allvin

An analytic perspective of a mixed methods study during humanitarian crises in South Sudan: translating facility- and community-based newborn guidelines into practice

In South Sudan, the civil war in 2016 led to mass displacement in Juba that rapidly spread to other regions of the country. Access to health care was limited because of attacks against health facilities and wo...

Authors: Samira Sami, Ribka Amsalu, Alexander Dimiti, Debra Jackson, Kemish Kenneth, Solomon Kenyi, Janet Meyers, Luke C. Mullany, Elaine Scudder, Barbara Tomczyk and Kate Kerber

Dynamics of non-communicable disease prevention, diagnosis and control in Lebanon, a fragile setting

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) present an increasing global health challenge, particularly for settings affected by fragility where access to care may be disrupted, and where high-quality continuous care deli...

Authors: Nadine Zablith, Karin Diaconu, Farah Naja, Maria El Koussa, Giulia Loffreda, Ibrahim Bou-Orm and Shadi Saleh

Exploring resource scarcity and contextual influences on wellbeing among young refugees in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, Uganda: findings from a qualitative study

Contextual factors including poverty and inequitable gender norms harm refugee adolescent and youths’ wellbeing. Our study focused on Bidi Bidi refugee settlement that hosts more than 230,000 of Uganda’s 1.4 m...

Authors: Carmen H. Logie, Moses Okumu, Maya Latif, Daniel Kibuuka Musoke, Simon Odong Lukone, Simon Mwima and Peter Kyambadde

A case analysis of partnered research on palliative care for refugees in Jordan and Rwanda

This case analysis describes dilemmas and challenges of ethical partnering encountered in the process of conducting a research study that explored moral and practical dimensions of palliative care in humanitar...

Authors: Sonya de Laat, Olive Wahoush, Rania Jaber, Wejdan Khater, Emmanuel Musoni, Ibraheem Abu Siam and Lisa Schwartz

In the era of humanitarian crisis, young women continue to die in childbirth in Mali

Maternal mortality occurs mostly in contexts of poverty and health system collapse. Mali has a very high maternal mortality rate and this extremely high mortality rate is due in part to longstanding constraint...

Authors: Pierre Coulibaly, Clémence Schantz, Brehima Traoré, Nanko S. Bagayoko, Abdoulaye Traoré, Fanny Chabrol and Oumar Guindo

Publisher Correction to: Challenges and strategies in conducting sexual and reproductive health research among Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Rushdia Ahmed, Bachera Aktar, Nadia Farnaz, Pushpita Ray, Abdul Awal, Raafat Hassan, Sharid Bin Shafique, Md Tanvir Hasan, Zahidul Quayyum, Mohira Babaeva Jafarovna, Loulou Hassan Kobeissi, Khalid El Tahir, Balwinder Singh Chawla and Sabina Faiz Rashid