Lightning Talk about Humanitarian Research Lab by Kaveh Khoshnood
March 21, 2024Information
Kaveh Khoshnood, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Track Director, Critical Topics, Executive MPH; Program Co-Director, Global Health Ethics Program, Yale Institute for Global Health; Faculty Director of Humanitarian Research Lab.
In the video, Kaveh talks about the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), a group of faculty and students who are dedicated to researching and addressing humanitarian crises throughout the world.
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- 00:00Hello everyone. I'm going to talk
- 00:02to you about the Humanitarian
- 00:04Research Lab which I launched in
- 00:092021 in the midst of the pandemic.
- 00:12But the focus on doing research which is
- 00:15relevant to humanitarian crisis situation.
- 00:17And when I'm talking about
- 00:19humanitarian crisis, I'm talking about,
- 00:21you know the two big buckets.
- 00:22There's natural disasters and then there
- 00:25is human disasters or or armed conflict.
- 00:29An armed conflict is my primary interest.
- 00:33So the mission of our lab or the the
- 00:36main purpose of it is to support
- 00:39humanitarian organizations and policy
- 00:41makers who respond to humanitarian crisis.
- 00:44And we have two broad objectives for our lab.
- 00:46One is address the health needs of
- 00:49populations that are affected by
- 00:51humanitarian crisis and 2nd is to
- 00:54produce evidence for war, crime,
- 00:56accountability.
- 00:57The 2nd objective is being led by
- 01:00my colleague Nathaniel Raymond,
- 01:02who has been doing this work for the last
- 01:0520 some years and he's a lecturer at,
- 01:08in our department,
- 01:10some examples of the health of
- 01:13populations in humanitarian settings.
- 01:15I had a long interest in HIV AIDS
- 01:17and now I'm focusing on HIV AIDS
- 01:20in humanitarian setting.
- 01:21This work has been done in northeast Uganda,
- 01:25which has gone through years of
- 01:27conflict and also we've done some
- 01:30HIV AIDS research project among the
- 01:33Syrian refugee population in Lebanon,
- 01:36both men who have sex with men
- 01:39and also those using drugs.
- 01:41The second project is verbal
- 01:44autopsy in northwest Syria.
- 01:47As some of you may know,
- 01:50according to The Who,
- 01:51about half of the deaths globally
- 01:53are not accurately registered.
- 01:55Causes of death are not known,
- 01:57and this is particularly a problem
- 01:59in low middle income countries
- 02:01and in conflict zones.
- 02:02We don't know how many people
- 02:04are dying and of what causes.
- 02:05And one of the tools that's available
- 02:07to do that is verbal autopsy,
- 02:09which is something I learned
- 02:11relatively recently.
- 02:12And we're collaborating with our
- 02:15colleagues to document and register deaths
- 02:19and causes of death in northwest Syria,
- 02:21which is a conflict zone.
- 02:23And we're planning to do
- 02:24the same thing in Sudan,
- 02:25which is also going through
- 02:28a major conflict right now.
- 02:30The other project is substance
- 02:32use and mental health to force
- 02:33migrants from the Middle East,
- 02:35North Africa region.
- 02:36This is a project that we are doing
- 02:39in Jordan as well as in Connecticut.
- 02:42We are trying to understand to
- 02:44what extent substance use is kind
- 02:47of a coping strategy for refugees,
- 02:49forced migrants who are going through
- 02:51a lot of mental health issues.
- 02:54Cancer care has come up multiple times.
- 02:58As you may know,
- 02:59a lot of the refugees are stuck.
- 03:01They're not just sort of staying
- 03:03short term in a country,
- 03:04They are there for years, decades.
- 03:06So some of them had been diagnosed
- 03:09with cancer before arriving in
- 03:12the transit location or or got
- 03:15cancer in the new location.
- 03:17And they're really been very limited
- 03:19attention paid to this issue.
- 03:21It's not something that I had
- 03:23expertise in but has kept coming up.
- 03:26So I'm collaborating with some
- 03:28colleagues who do cancer care and
- 03:30treatment and we're doing it right now
- 03:32in Lebanon and also in northwest Syria.
- 03:35And finally I've had a long term
- 03:38interest in ethics of conducting
- 03:40research with vulnerable population.
- 03:42And as you can imagine,
- 03:43if you're doing research,
- 03:45especially non sensitive topics like
- 03:47substance use among forced migrants,
- 03:50we want to make sure that the research
- 03:52we're doing is not harmful to them,
- 03:54that actually is helps them.
- 03:56And so we really need to be mindful of the
- 03:59ethical aspects of this kind of research.
- 04:01So these are some examples of health of
- 04:04populations in humanitarian setting.
- 04:06The second project for our conflict
- 04:10for our Humanitarian Research Lab is
- 04:14collaboration with the State Department,
- 04:17which launched a Conflict
- 04:19Observatory project in May 2022,
- 04:22a few months after the
- 04:24war started in Ukraine.
- 04:25And basically what the State Department
- 04:28is asking us to do is to capture
- 04:30and analyze evidence of war crimes
- 04:32and other atrocities that are being
- 04:35perpetrated by Russia and Ukraine.
- 04:36So the way this project is being done
- 04:39is by analyzing open source data,
- 04:42including social media and other
- 04:44open source information as well as
- 04:47satellite imagery data to be able to
- 04:50document these attacks on hospitals
- 04:52and other civilian facilities.
- 04:54So this is a project we've been
- 04:56involved with since May 2022.
- 04:58Then in April of this year, as you know,
- 05:01the conflict started in Sudan.
- 05:03So State Department wanted us
- 05:05to continue that work in Sudan.
- 05:07These are examples of the reports
- 05:09that our lab are putting out,
- 05:11reports on attacks on hospital
- 05:14and other healthcare facilities
- 05:16and by Russian forces in Ukraine,
- 05:19looking at attacks and damage
- 05:22to crop storage in Ukraine,
- 05:25mass graves in Ukraine and now also in Sudan.
- 05:29I've highlighted these two reports
- 05:31because these two reports have
- 05:33gotten far more attention than
- 05:34other reports we're putting out.
- 05:37This particular one is on forced deportation
- 05:41of Ukrainian children by Russia.
- 05:44And as you may have heard,
- 05:45the International Criminal Court
- 05:48referenced this report and indicted
- 05:51Putin for so-called war crimes.
- 05:54And this report on Sudan has also
- 05:57been used by State Department as part
- 06:00of the negotiation that's happening,
- 06:02peace negotiation that's happening in Sudan.
- 06:05So those are sort of the broad
- 06:07aspects of my lab.