Conflict epidemiology

The emerging field of conflict epidemiology offers a more accurate method to measure deaths caused during violent conflicts or wars that can generate more reliable numbers than before to guide decision-makers.

In February 2001 the Carter Center and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), in collaboration with CARE (relief), Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sponsored a meeting on "Violence and Health". The goals of the meeting were to determine the impact of violent conflict on public health and to advise public health training programs on means to enhance the work of public health professionals in working in violent conflicts.

Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed during historic conflicts. What conflict epidemiology offers is a better methodology to more accurately estimate actual mortality rates during existing wars and conflict.

As war is a leading cause of illness and death, there are those in the field of public health who argue "war epidemiology" should be a more prominent component of the field of public health.

Health effects of a conflict

Clarence C Tam et al. provide a conceptual framework for conflict epidemiology, listing the following public health effects stemming from conflicts.

Direct effects

• Death
• Injury
• Torture

Indirect effects

• Collapse of health infrastructure
• Environmental impact, such as pollution
• Loss of basic commodities, such as power and water
• Chronic and acute malnutrition
• Effects on psychological health
• Unexploded ordnance and landmines
• Infectious disease (waterborne diseases, contagious infections and vector-borne disease, STIs and sexual assault)

Iraq Conflict 2003

The subject of conflict epidemiology made headline news after a report of a survey was conducted by an American and Iraqi team of public health researchers. Data were collected by local Iraqi doctors and analysed by the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

See also

• Lancet surveys of casualties of the Iraq War

Further reading

• Burnham G, Lafta R, Doocy S, Roberts L., Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. Lancet 2006;368:1421-8. [1]
• Giles, James, Risking life and limb to count the war dead. New Scientist, no 2615, 1 August 2007.
• McDonnell SM, Bolton P, Sunderland N, Bellows B, White M, Noji E., The Role of the Applied Epidemiologist in Armed Conflict. Emerging Themes Epidemiol 2004, vol 1 no 4. [2] & [3]
• Thieren, Michel, Health and foreign policy in question: the case of humanitarian action. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol 85, no 3. [4]