Health-related articles on Syria before and after the start of armed conflict: a scoping review for The Lancet-American University of Beirut Commission on Syria

Conflict and Health

Dalal Rahme¹  Fadi El-Jardali²  Lama Bou-Karroum²  Racha Fadlallah²  Elie A. Akl³  Danna Kashlan⁴  Mohamad Almalla⁴  Walaa Kayyal⁴  Tania Khater⁴  Rima A. Abdul-Khalek⁴  Khurram Arif⁴  Manal K. Elzalabany⁴  Samer Jabbour⁴  Amena El-Harakeh⁴  Sara Kassas⁴  Mohammed Jawad⁵  Abdul Rahman Akkawi⁶  Fatima Ghaddar⁶  Omran Saifi⁶  Nisreen Mobayed⁷ 

[1] AUB Libraries, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Center for Systematic Reviews on Health Policy and Systems Research (SPARK), American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Clinical Research Institute, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon;Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Public Health Policy Evaluation Unit, Imperial College London, London, UK;Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon;Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA;

关键词: Public health;    Syria;    Research;    Productivity;    Health-related articles;    Conflict;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13031-020-00316-7

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

IntroductionArmed conflict may influence the size and scope of research in Arab countries. We aimed to assess the impact of the 2011 Syrian conflict on health articles about Syria published in indexed journals.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review on Syrian health-related articles using seven electronic databases. We included clinical, biomedical, public health, or health system topics published between 1991 and 2017. We excluded animal studies and studies conducted on Syrian refugees. We used descriptive and social network analyses to assess the differences in rates, types, topics of articles, and authorship before and after 2011, the start of the Syrian conflict.ResultsOf 1138 articles, 826 (72.6%) were published after 2011. Articles published after 2011 were less likely to be primary research; had a greater proportion reporting on mental health (4.6% vs. 10.0%), accidents and injuries (2.3% vs. 18.8%), and conflict and health (1.7% vs. 7.8%) (all p < 0.05); and a lower proportion reporting on child and maternal health (8.1 to 3.6%, p = 0.019). The proportion of research articles reporting no funding increased from 1.1 to 14.6% (p < 0.01). While international collaborations increased over time, the number of articles with no authors affiliated to Syrian institutions overtook those with at least one author affiliation to a Syrian institution for the first time in 2015.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of armed conflict on health scholarship in Syria. The Syrian conflict was associated with a change in the rates, types, and topics of the health-related articles, and authors’ affiliations. Our findings have implications for the prioritization of research funding, development of inclusive research collaborations, and promoting the ethics of conducting research in complex humanitarian settings.

【 授权许可】

CC BY