Resilience to Nested Crises
The Effects of the Beirut Explosion on COVID-19 Safety Protocol Adherence During Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees
Abstract
To provide services safely to refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic, humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) instituted public health safety protocols to mitigate the risk of spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
However, it can be difficult for people to adhere to protocols under the best of circumstances, and in situations of nested crises, in which one crisis contributes to a cascade of additional crises, adherence can further deteriorate. Such a nested crises situation occurred in Beirut, Lebanon, when a massive explosion in the city injured or killed thousands and destroyed essential infrastructure.
Using data from their R2HC-funded study on COVID-19 safety protocol adherence during refugee humanitarian assistance in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, a cross-country comparison was used to determine whether the nested crises in Beirut led to a deterioration of protocol adherence or whether adherence remained robust. This paper finds greater evidence for the latter, and therefore makes public health recommendations for service provision occurring in disaster areas.
This research was supported by the Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) Programme
Citation
Nawyn S, Karaoglu E, Gasteyer S, ˘Mansour R, Ghassani A and Marquart-Pyatt S (2022) Resilience to Nested Crises: The Effects of the Beirut Explosion on COVID-19 Safety Protocol Adherence During Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees.Front. Public Health 10:870158. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.870158