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Peace and Human Rights Data

Founded: 2021
Faculty Leads: Phuong Pham, PhD, MPH, and Patrick Vinck, PhD
Status: Active Program
Regions of Focus: Central Africa, West Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, Middle East
Research Theme: Risk, Resilience and Response

Description

HHI’s Peace and Human Rights Data Program conducts research and builds capacity in countries experiencing complex emergencies and serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The program trains researchers and uses empirical and mixed research methods to consult, represent, and support survivors of mass violence and disasters. Through the program, HHI works to ensure that the needs of survivors are recognized and acted on by governments, United Nations agencies, and nongovernmental organizations.

Projects:

Peacebuilding and Education

This project examines the role of education and schools and their associations with resilience in the context of violence and conflict. This project was developed in collaboration with UNICEF and builds on other work around youth and resilience conducted with the Eastern Congo Initiative.

Peacebuilding and Reconstruction Polls - DRC

This project conducts polls every three months in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to examine changes in security, protection, and access to justice over time. It was developed in collaboration with UNDP and MONUSCO to inform actors on the ground and provide timely data for decision making. A large baseline was conducted in 2013 based on the consultation of 5,000 randomly selected Congolese in the region.

Framework for Assessing Resilience

This projects seeks to develop a cross-cultural framework for assessing resilience in the context of conflicts and violence. It relies on large scale consultation and research in Guatemala, Liberia, and Timor-Leste. This work is implemented in collaboration with InterPeace.

Methodology

The Peace and Human Rights Data program was created to develop and implement rigorous methodologies to investigate and inform the complex process of rebuilding societies after violence. The project features mixed-methods research undertaken in countries affected by mass violence, and include the development of measures and indicators to capture complex dynamics. One key component of this approach is a series of population-based studies to examine individuals experience of conflict, the effects of violence on their daily lives, and what survivors would like to see happen in the future. This consultation fills the gap between peacebuilding work as it is envisioned by policy-makers, and its implementation, reception and perception on the ground.

At present, the website PeacebuildingData.org features research undertaken by the program’s founding members. The program further helps improve the capacity of local organizations to collect and analyze data about survivors and vulnerable populations so that their needs will be heard and their rights can be protected.

Since 2003 the research team has interviewed over 40,000 survivors of violence in places like Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, the Philippines, Rwanda and Uganda.

Publications

Sean M Kivlehan, Amy Allen, Olha Viun, Dmitry A Makarov, Daniel Schnorr, Sonny Patel, Sergii A Ryzhenko, Phuong Pham, and Timothy B Erickson. 6/14/2022. “Evaluation of change in emergency care knowledge and skills among front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine with the Basic Emergency Care course: a pretest/post-test study.” BMJ Open. Read PublicationAbstract

Objective: Evaluate the change in participant emergency care knowledge and skill confidence after implementation of the WHO-International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Basic Emergency Care (BEC) course.

Design: Pretest/post-test quasi-experimental study.

Setting: Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, Ukraine.

Participants: Seventy-nine participants engaged in the course, of whom 50 (63.3%) completed all assessment tools. The course was open to healthcare providers of any level who assess and treat emergency conditions as part of their practice. The most common participant profession was resident physician (24%), followed by health educator (18%) and prehospital provider (14%).

Interventions: The 5-day WHO-ICRC BEC course.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: Change in pre-course and post-course knowledge and skill confidence assessments. Open-ended written feedback was collected upon course completion and analysed for common themes.

Results: Participant knowledge assessment scores improved from 19 (IQR 15–20) to 22 (IQR 19–23) on a 25-point scale (p<0.001). Participant skill confidence self-assessment scores improved from 2.5 (IQR 2.1–2.8) to 2.9 (IQR 2.5–3.3) on a 4-point scale (p<0.001). The most common positive feedback themes were high-quality teaching and useful skill sessions. The most common constructive feedback themes were translation challenges and request for additional skill session time.

Conclusions: This first implementation of the WHO-ICRC BEC course for front-line healthcare providers in Ukraine was successful and well received by participants. This is also the first report of a BEC implementation outside of Africa and suggests that the course is also effective in the European context, particularly in humanitarian crisis and conflict settings. Future research should evaluate long-term knowledge retention and the impact on patient outcomes. Further iterations should emphasise local language translation and consider expanding clinical skills sessions.

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