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The role of health-related data in promoting the security of health care in armed conflict and other emergencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2014

Robin Coupland
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Abstract

Health-related data provide the basis of policy in many domains. By using a methodology specifically designed to gather data about any form of violence and its impact, violence affecting health-care personnel, health-care facilities, and the wounded and sick in these facilities can be quantified on an objective basis. The impact of this form of violence and its accompanying insecurity goes beyond those directly affected to the many who are ultimately denied health care. Reliable data about both the violence affecting health-care personnel and facilities and the ‘knock-on’ effects of this violence on the health of many others have a critical role to play in influencing the policies of all stakeholders, including governments, in favour of greater security of effective and impartial health care in armed conflict and other emergencies. The International Committee of the Red Cross has undertaken a study that attempts to understand on a global basis the nature and impact of the many different kinds of violence affecting health care.

Keywords

health-care dataHealth Care in Dangerviolence against health caredenial of access to health careSixteen-Country Studyinsecurity of health care
Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 95 , Issue 889: Violence against health care Part I: The problem and the law , March 2013 , pp. 61 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © icrc 2014 

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References

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2 Rubenstein, Leonard and Bittle, Melanie D., ‘Responsibility for protection of medical workers and facilities in armed conflict’, in The Lancet, Vol. 375, 2010, pp. 329–340CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. See also ICRC, ‘Health Care in Danger: first steps at London Symposium’, 25 April 2012, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/feature/2012/health-care-in-danger-feature-2012-04-25.htm. All internet references were last accessed in February 2013.

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6 The definition of violence adopted by the WHO is ‘the intentional use of physical force or power – threatened or actual – against oneself, another person, or against a group or community that results in or has the likelihood to result in injury or death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation’. See Violence Prevention Alliance, ‘Definition and typology of violence’, available at: www.who.int/violenceprevention/approach/definition/en/index.html.

7 ICRC, Health Care in Danger: A Sixteen-Country Study, ICRC, Geneva, August 2011, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/report/hcid-report-2011-08-10.htm.

8 Editor's note: this article mainly focuses on the methodology used during the Sixteen-Country Study. Since then, the methodology has evolved and the ICRC, in the context of its monitoring activities, continues to collect data on incidents affecting the delivery of health care, through various sources of information.

9 See Taback-Coupland model, above note 5.

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17 See ICRC, above note 3.

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23 See L. Rubenstein and M. Bittle, above note 2.

24 See above note 11.

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27 See MSF, ‘Medical care under fire’, available at: www.msf.org/topics/medical-care-under-fire.

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29 See above note 11.

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