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Non-communicable diseases among conflict-affected populations

© Senior Airman Omari BernardEdited by Bayard Roberts, Kiran Jobanputra, Preeti Patel, and Pablo Perel
Conflict and Health

Conflict and Health is pleased to have a thematic series on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among conflict-affected populations. 

This series seeks to address key questions such as:

  • What are the burdens and patterns of NCDs and their risk-factors?
  • How effective and feasible are prevention and treatment services for NCDs?
  • How can health services, systems and policies be more responsive to NCDs?
  • What are the methodological developments in researching and monitoring NCDs?
  • What are the key barriers to addressing NCDs and how can they best be overcome?

Current papers in the series address topics such as cardiovascular disease and other NCDs among Syrian refugees, prevalence of NCDs and access to care among populations displaced by ISIS in Iraq, challenges to conducting epidemiological research on NCDs in Palestine and papers on NCD risk-factors such as tobacco use among conflict-affected populations.

We welcome quantitative and qualitative research papers, reviews, short reports, case studies, methodology articles, commentaries, and debate articles.

This collection is now closed and no longer open for submissions.

View all collections published in Conflict and Health

  1. Diabetes and hypertension are increasingly prevalent in low and middle income countries, but they are not well documented in refugee settlements in these settings. We sought to estimate the prevalence and asso...

    Authors: Rachel W. Kubiak, Elinor M. Sveum, Zikama Faustin, Timothy Muwonge, Hussain Abbas Zaidi, Andrew Kambugu, Simon Masereka, Julius Kasozi, Ingrid V. Bassett and Kelli N. O’Laughlin
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2021 15:53
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. 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
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2021 15:45
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. 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
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2021 15:9
    Content type: Review Published on:

  5. The growing burden of non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries presents substantive challenges for health systems. This is also the case in fragile, post-conflict and post-Ebola Sierra Leo...

    Authors: Sophie Witter, Guanyang Zou, Karin Diaconu, Reynold G. B. Senesi, Ayesha Idriss, John Walley and Haja Ramatulai Wurie
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2020 14:3
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Humanitarian actors and host-countries in the Middle East and North Africa region are challenged with meeting the health needs of Syrian refugees and adjusting the response to contemporary humanitarian conditi...

    Authors: Zahirah Zahrah McNatt, Patricia Elaine Freels, Hannah Chandler, Muhammad Fawad, Sandy Qarmout, Amani Saleh Al-Oraibi and Neil Boothby
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2019 13:26
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been providing primary care for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which have been increasing in low to middle-income countries, in the Shatila refugee camp, Beirut, Lebanon, ...

    Authors: Maysoon Kayali, Krystel Moussally, Chantal Lakis, Mohamad Ali Abrash, Carla Sawan, Anthony Reid and Jeffrey Edwards
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2019 13:12
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. During June 2014 to April 2017, the population of Mosul, Iraq lived in a state of increasing isolation from the rest of Iraq due to the city’s occupation by the Islamic State group. As part of a study to devel...

    Authors: Louisa M. Baxter, Manal Shams Eldin, Ali Al Mohammed, Malika Saim and Francesco Checchi
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:48
    Content type: Short report Published on:

  10. There has been increasing focus on tackling the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) in crisis settings. The complex and protracted crisis in Syria is unfolding against a background of increasing ...

    Authors: Sylvia Garry, Francesco Checchi and Beniamino Cislaghi
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:45
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. Patients with diabetes require knowledge and skills to self-manage their disease, a challenging aspect of treatment that is difficult to address in humanitarian settings. Due to the lack of literature and expe...

    Authors: James A. Elliott, Debashish Das, Philippe Cavailler, Fabien Schneider, Maya Shah, Annette Ravaud, Maria Lightowler and Philippa Boulle
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:40
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. Tackling the high non-communicable disease (NCD) burden among Syrian refugees poses a challenge to humanitarian actors and host countries. Current response priorities are the identification and integration of ...

    Authors: Manuela Rehr, Muhammad Shoaib, Sara Ellithy, Suhib Okour, Cono Ariti, Idriss Ait-Bouziad, Paul van den Bosch, Anais Deprade, Mohammad Altarawneh, Abdel Shafei, Sadeq Gabashneh and Annick Lenglet
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:33
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. Performance based financing (PBF) has been increasingly implemented across low and middle-income countries, including in fragile and humanitarian settings, which present specific features likely to require ada...

    Authors: Maria Paola Bertone, Eelco Jacobs, Jurrien Toonen, Ngozi Akwataghibe and Sophie Witter
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:28
    Content type: Research Published on:

  15. Recent trends and research suggest health conditions of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon are deteriorating. The following case study highlights some of the problems that refugees encounter seeking health care se...

    Authors: Salim M. Saiyed, John Kahler and Mutaz Kalabani
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2018 12:14
    Content type: Letter to the Editor Published on:

  17. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) represent the primary cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Specific attention needs to be given in fragile and crisis-affected contexts, where health systems have even m...

    Authors: S. Aebischer Perone, E. Martinez, S. du Mortier, R. Rossi, M. Pahud, V. Urbaniak, F. Chappuis, O. Hagon, F. Jacquérioz Bausch and D. Beran
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2017 11:17
    Content type: Review Published on:

  18. The growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) presented new challenges for medical humanitarian aid and little was known about primary health care approaches for these diseases in humanitarian respons...

    Authors: Dylan R.J. Collins, Kiran Jobanputra, Thomas Frost, Shoaib Muhammed, Alison Ward, Abed Alrazzaq Shafei, Taissir Fardous, Sadeq Gabashneh and Carl Heneghan
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2017 11:14
    Content type: Research Published on:

  19. The increasing caseload of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in displaced populations poses new challenges for humanitarian agencies and host country governments in the provision of health care, diagnostics and...

    Authors: Valeria Cetorelli, Gilbert Burnham and Nazar Shabila
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2017 11:4
    Content type: Research Published on:

  20. Little has been written on the challenges of conducting research in regions or countries with chronic conflict and strife. In this paper we share our experiences in conducting a population based study of chron...

    Authors: Rasha Khatib, Rita Giacaman, Umaiyeh Khammash and Salim Yusuf
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2017 10:33
    Content type: Short report Published on:

  21. Given the large burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among both Syrian refugees and the host communities within which they are settled, humanitarian actors and the government of Lebanon face immense chal...

    Authors: Shannon Doocy, Emily Lyles, Baptiste Hanquart and Michael Woodman
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2016 10:21
    Content type: Research Published on:

  22. Evidence is conflicting as to the whether tobacco smoking prevalence is higher in refugee than non-refugee populations. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence and frequency of tobacco smoking in P...

    Authors: Mohammed Jawad, Ali Khader and Christopher Millett
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2016 10:20
    Content type: Research Published on:

  23. 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
    Citation: Conflict and Health 2015 9:15
    Content type: Case study Published on: