Week 7: Violent Conflict and Health

Question 1

What is violence?

Answer 1

The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation

Question 2

What is the concept of structural violence?

Answer 2

Describes the effects of social structures such as economic inequality, gender and racial discrimination etc.

Question 3

How do social structures have a role in structural violence?

Answer 3

These structures are :
- Often invisible
- Embedded in ubiquitous social norms and conventions
- Normalised by society
- Cause enormous harm

Question 4

How do we distinguish between armed conflict and war?

Answer 4

Armed conflict results in at least 25 battle-related deaths per year, war results in at least 1000 battle-related deaths per year.

Question 5

Why should we see violent conflict as a public health problem?

Answer 5

• Reduce uncertainty about magnitude of mortality and disability due to violent conflict
• Accurately forecast in order to assess health risks of violent conflict
• Improve humanitarian response

Question 6

List three effects of violent conflicts on health outcomes.

Answer 6

• Increased mortality
• Increased morbidity
• Increased disability

Question 7

How are health effects of war changing?

Answer 7

• Diseases of overcrowded camps (cholera, shigella, measles) are reducing (also due to better control efforts)
• Neonatal disorders, pneumonia, endemic diarrhoea persist in ‘underserviced, insecure regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia’
• Chronic diseases (e.g. diabetes, cancer) becoming more prominent, a lot more excess mortality and morbidity from these causes in conflict zones than in the past