Today, several of the world's worst humanitarian crises are taking place in the MENA region, including in Gaza, Sudan and Syria. Even in Middle Eastern countries no longer at war, legacies of warfare have left a devastating toll. This open access book is designed to assess the health effects of these MENA conflicts and to highlight what is being done to overcome them. The state-of-the-art volume features the work of leading medical anthropologists, whose ethnographic case studies shed light on the political, socioeconomic, environmental, cultural and organizational complexity of addressing global health threats through timely programs and interventions.

The volume explores the lives of MENA medical humanitarians, as well as the people they serve, with a special focus on women and children who are the groups most impacted by the conditions in war zones and refugee camps. Subjects discussed include: childbirth related morbidity and mortality, the spread of infectious diseases, sexual violence leading to HIV/AIDS, and inadequate support for those with war-related disabilities. Taken together, the eighteen case studies advocate for the right to health for people who find themselves living in war-torn, post-conflict, refugee-serving, and resource-poor settings across the MENA region. The volume also issues a strong call for peace as a prerequisite for physical, mental, social, and spiritual health and well-being.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on
bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Yale University.