How can we improve the public health response in humanitarian crises?
Adequate, high quality, evidence is lacking to inform humanitarian response teams to ensure they deliver effective interventions. This gap was identified through a 2015 evidence review of research on health
How can we improve the public health response in humanitarian crises?
Adequate, high quality, evidence is lacking to inform humanitarian response teams to ensure they deliver effective interventions. This gap was identified through a 2015 evidence review of research on health interventions in humanitarian crises, authored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and commissioned by Elrha’s Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises Programme (R2HC).
Through a series of systematic reviews of the available literature and qualitative interviews with practitioners, policymakers and academics, the predominant gaps and weaknesses in the evidence base for humanitarian public health responses were identified as well as priorities for future research.
Humanitarian crises today
There is great diversity in the types of humanitarian crises that occur today. This results in an equally widespread need for humanitarian assistance.
The number of humanitarian crises has risen in recent years and led to an upward trend in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide.
The total number of people forcibly displaced from their homes reached a record high in 2015, with more than 65 million forcibly displaced worldwide.
Globally, 33,972 people are forced to flee their homes each day.
With numbers increasing, the need is more important than ever to provide evidence-based interventions to ensure quality healthcare services are provided.
Conflict was the greatest source of both refugees and IDPs in 2015, with more than half of them coming from Sy