CE-DAT - Centre for research on the epidemiology of disasters

Recurrent civil conflict has blocked progress toward improving health in Somalia. Violent power struggles between political factions followed he breakdown of the government in 1991. Large numbers of civilians were displaced and warlords diverted food aid. In response, a United States-led military intervention attempted to facilitate access for humanitarian relief. While armed forces clashed in Mogadishu, food distribution was disrupted and famine continued in the south. United Nations (UN) peacekeepers followed but were unable to restore order. Of the ensuing period, Alex de Waal wrote that ‘‘centralized political authority has never reemerged’

Prepared by: Debarati Guha-Sapir, Ruwan Ratnayake
Published in: PLOS Medicine • August 2009 ; 6:8 •

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The use of epidemiology in documenting the mortality experience in complex emergencies has become pervasive in humanitarian practice. Recent assessments in Iraq and Darfur have provoked much discussion on the assessment of mortality in scientific and policy spheres. In this context, CRED and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative held an inter-disciplinary symposium to examine the topic among epidemiologists, demographers, forensic scientists and legal and human rights investigators. We aimed to strengthen the scientific understanding of mortality estimation by reviewing progress across fields and building inter-disciplinary bridges.

Prepared by: Ruwan Ratnayake, Olivier Degomme and Debarati Guha-Sapir
Published in: Conflict and Health • February 2009 ; 3:2 •

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Armed violence affects all societies to different degrees, whether they are at war, in a post-conflict situation, or suffering from everyday forms of criminal or political violence. Armed violence stunts human, social, and economic development and erodes the social capital of communities. The Global Burden of Armed Violence report, written by a team of experts, provides an overview of the incidence, severity, and distribution of different types of armed violence—in both conflict and non-conflict situations, from both large and small-scale violence, in criminally and politically motivated contexts.

Published in: Global Burden of Armed Violence, Geneva Declaration Secretariat, Geneva, pp.31-48; • September 2008 •
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Humanitarian aid has been justified for decades on the basis of its charitable nature rather than its effectiveness. Political expediencies or media coverage has often driven the allocation of emergency aid, recently illustrated by the unprecedented levels of aid for the tsunami disaster compared to that for the Darfur crisis where the humanitarian need was generally considered to be more severe. However, important changes took place during the 1990s.

Prepared by: Olivier Degomme, Debarati Guha-Sapir
Published in: Emerging Themes in Epidemiology • June 2007 ; 4:11 •

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Gilbert Burnham and colleagues' Iraq mortality study fills an important information gap in a country where reliable mortality statistics are rare. It transforms anecdotes of violence into systematic evidence. However, the paper could have addressed some methodological issues which might have strengthened the credibility of the estimates.
 
First, according to Burnham and colleagues' results, there were nearly 600 war deaths per day—an unusually high number compared with almost any other armed conflict...

 
Prepared by: Debarati Guha-Sapir, Olivier Degomme, Jon Pederson
Published in: The Lancet, Volume 369, Issue 9556, Page 102, 13 January 2007
 
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Armed conflicts are defined as political conflicts in which armed combat involves the armed forces of at least one state or one or more armed factions seeking to gain control of all or part of the state, and in which at least 1,000 people have been killed by the fighting during the course of the conflict. Globally, the number of armed conflicts has been decreasing since 1995, when it peaked at 44 recorded civil wars. In 2003 there were 37 active conflicts in the world. More than 80 percent of these conflicts were in Asia and Africa.

Prepared by: Debarati Guha-Sapir, Willem Gijsbert van Panhuis, Olivier Degomme, Vicente Teran
Published in: Epidemiologic Reviews • February 2005 ; 27:1 •

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 Mortality rates are among the main indicators of the human impact of armed conflict and many surveys have assessed this impact both for targeting and evaluating humanitarian aid programmes. Almost no epidemiological analysis such as calculating relative risk was performed nor were reference values clearly described. Here the aim is to review published mortality rates for a better understanding of age specific mortality in armed conflict. Published mortality rates from conflict situations were collected and pre-conflict reference rates composed.

Prepared by: Debarati Guha-Sapir, Willem Gijsbert van Panhuis
Published in: Disasters • 2004 Dec; 28(4):418-28 •

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Civil conflict affects the health of individuals in many countries, and draws a substantial amount of international humanitarian aid. The most widely used indicator of the effect of conflict is the rate of civilian death during conflict. We aimed to assess mortality estimates from conflicts in Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan by calculating the relative risk of death during and after conflict compared with that in preconflict peacetime.

Prepared by: Debarati Guha-Sapir, Willem Gijsbert van Panhuis
Published in: The Lancet • 2003 Jun 21; 361(9375):2126-8 •

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