Challenges in researching violence affecting health service delivery in complex security environments

Ludvig Foghammar, Suyoun Jang, Gulzhan Asylbek Kyzy, Nerina Weiss, Katherine A. Sullivan, Fawzia Gibson-Fall and Rachel Irwin

Social Science & Medicine, 2016, vol. 162, issue C, 219-226

Abstract: Complex security environments are characterized by violence (including, but not limited to “armed conflict” in the legal sense), poverty, environmental disasters and poor governance. Violence directly affecting health service delivery in complex security environments includes attacks on individuals (e.g. doctors, nurses, administrators, security guards, ambulance drivers and translators), obstructions (e.g. ambulances being stopped at checkpoints), discrimination (e.g. staff being pressured to treat one patient instead of another), attacks on and misappropriation of health facilities and property (e.g. vandalism, theft and ambulance theft by armed groups), and the criminalization of health workers. This paper examines the challenges associated with researching the context, scope and nature of violence directly affecting health service delivery in these environments. With a focus on data collection, it considers how these challenges affect researchers’ ability to analyze the drivers of violence and impact of violence.

Keywords: Healthcare; Violence; Conflict; Humanitarian; Gender; Emergency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:162:y:2016:i:c:p:219-226

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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.03.039

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