Responding to Violent Conflict: Epidemiological Methods & Public Health Interventions

The last hundred years have witnessed an alarming number ofviolent conflicts (VC), some of which are ongoing. In its seminal2002 World Report on Violence and Health, WHO describedviolence as a public health problem, estimated its scope andmagnitude, and categorized it into self-directed, interpersonal andcollective violence. The WHO called upon public healthprofessionals to become more engaged in examining the causesand consequences of violence and to develop strategies to preventit. How have we responded to this call The course I have developed for MPH students at Yale School ofPublic Health is a partial response to this call. The course isfocused primarily on collective violence, while also recognizingthat all forms of violence are interrelated. The course paysparticular attention to the Middle East and North African(MENA) region, especially the Syrian crisis, while drawing onsalient examples from other regions of the world that haveexperienced VC. We will review and critique the availablescientific evidence to measure negative health consequences ofVC and pay particular attention to epidemiological methods usedin producing this evidence and discuss the challenges ofconducting rigorous epidemiological studies in contexts offragility and insecurity. Later in the course, we will explore howthese methods are applied to understand specific healthconsequences of conflict including: infectious diseases, substanceabuse, nutrition and food insecurity and sexual and gender-basedviolence. We will critically examine the role of research and evidence in humanitarian action with the goal of understandingwhat makes some interventions more successful than others.Throughout these analyses, we will also consider the inevitableethical challenges of conducting research and delivering publichealth interventions in contexts of humanitarian crisis and withconflict-affected populations.