A Decade of Reported Attacks on Health Care and Aid Workers Across 20 Conflict-Affected Settings (2016-2024): A...

Area of Science:

• Global Health Security
• Humanitarian Medicine
• Conflict Analysis

Background:

• Violence against health workers and facilities in conflict zones is a critical public health issue.
• Disruptions to health services and humanitarian aid undermine response efforts.
• Standardized data for comparing attacks on healthcare across multiple countries is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a standardized, multicountry comparison of violence against health systems.
• To identify high-burden settings and patterns of harm.
• To inform surveillance, preparedness, and protection strategies.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective, descriptive observational analysis of open-source data (2016-2024).
• Utilized incident-level records from the UN Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX).
• Covered 20 conflict-affected settings, standardizing data per capita for comparison.

Main Results:

• Harm to health systems increased post-2021 across settings.
• Palestine (PSE) showed the highest per-capita burden of fatalities and attacks.
• Ukraine had the highest absolute number of facility attacks; Myanmar saw mass arrests of health workers.

Conclusions:

• Attacks on healthcare in conflict are frequent and diverse.
• Per-capita analysis reveals significant variability in harm types and burden across settings.
• High-burden contexts require prioritized surveillance, planning, and protection efforts.