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Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

In the sixth year of the Syrian conflict, 11 million people have been displaced, including more than 1.1 million seeking refuge in Lebanon. Prior to the crisis, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for 80% of all deaths in Syria, and the underlying health behaviors such as tobacco use, obesity,...

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Autores principales: Sethi, Stephen, Jonsson, Rebecka, Skaff, Rony, Tyler, Frank
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Global Health: Science and Practice 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28928227
http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-17-00043
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author Sethi, Stephen
Jonsson, Rebecka
Skaff, Rony
Tyler, Frank
author_facet Sethi, Stephen
Jonsson, Rebecka
Skaff, Rony
Tyler, Frank
author_sort Sethi, Stephen
collection PubMed
description In the sixth year of the Syrian conflict, 11 million people have been displaced, including more than 1.1 million seeking refuge in Lebanon. Prior to the crisis, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for 80% of all deaths in Syria, and the underlying health behaviors such as tobacco use, obesity, and physical inactivity are still prevalent among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Humanitarian agencies initially responded to the acute health care needs of refugees by delivering services to informal settlements via mobile medical clinics. As the crisis has become more protracted, humanitarian response plans have shifted their focus to strengthening local health systems in order to better address the needs of both the host and refugee populations. To that end, we identified gaps in care for NCDs and launched a program to deliver chronic disease care for refugees. Based on a participatory needs assessment and community surveys, and building on the success of community health programs in other contexts, we developed a network of 500 refugee outreach volunteers who are supported with training, supervision, and materials to facilitate health promotion and disease control for community members, target NCDs and other priority conditions, and make referrals to a primary health care center for subsidized care. This model demonstrates that volunteer refugee health workers can implement community-based primary health activities in a complex humanitarian emergency.
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spelling pubmed-56203452017-10-03 Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon Sethi, Stephen Jonsson, Rebecka Skaff, Rony Tyler, Frank Glob Health Sci Pract Field Action Report In the sixth year of the Syrian conflict, 11 million people have been displaced, including more than 1.1 million seeking refuge in Lebanon. Prior to the crisis, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) accounted for 80% of all deaths in Syria, and the underlying health behaviors such as tobacco use, obesity, and physical inactivity are still prevalent among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Humanitarian agencies initially responded to the acute health care needs of refugees by delivering services to informal settlements via mobile medical clinics. As the crisis has become more protracted, humanitarian response plans have shifted their focus to strengthening local health systems in order to better address the needs of both the host and refugee populations. To that end, we identified gaps in care for NCDs and launched a program to deliver chronic disease care for refugees. Based on a participatory needs assessment and community surveys, and building on the success of community health programs in other contexts, we developed a network of 500 refugee outreach volunteers who are supported with training, supervision, and materials to facilitate health promotion and disease control for community members, target NCDs and other priority conditions, and make referrals to a primary health care center for subsidized care. This model demonstrates that volunteer refugee health workers can implement community-based primary health activities in a complex humanitarian emergency. Global Health: Science and Practice 2017-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5620345/ /pubmed/28928227 http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-17-00043 Text en © Sethi et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly cited. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. When linking to this article, please use the following permanent link: https://doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-17-00043
spellingShingle Field Action Report
Sethi, Stephen
Jonsson, Rebecka
Skaff, Rony
Tyler, Frank
Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title_full Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title_fullStr Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title_full_unstemmed Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title_short Community-Based Noncommunicable Disease Care for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
title_sort community-based noncommunicable disease care for syrian refugees in lebanon
topic Field Action Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620345/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28928227
http://dx.doi.org/10.9745/GHSP-D-17-00043
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