Global Disaster Medicine PhDs research ranges from public health insurance to health seeking behaviour and prehospital care in armed conflict
Over the last couple of months, the research group Global Disaster Medicine – Health Needs and Response at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, has had the pleasure of welcoming three new PhD students. Between them, Wessam, Mostafa and Sovathiro’s research cover the impact of public health insurance, understanding health seeking behaviour in people affected by armed conflict and prehospital care for civilians in armed conflict and war.
First up, Sovathiro, tell us a bit more about yourself:
I am from Cambodia, where I work as a researcher at the National Social Protection Council and I retain that position whilst I am now taking time to do my PhD. Before that I was working at the Cambodian National Institute of Public Health. My research is very connected to the work I have been doing at both those places, which I like. It means I can see real world application of my research and that motivates me.
When I am not working, I enjoy sports and exercise, particularly badminton, but also running and going to the gym. I have been enjoying finding new routes to run in Stockholm while I have been here. Similarly, I like taking photos and hope that my photography helps keep my mind open and creative.
What about your research, very briefly, tell us what your PhD is about?
Firstly, it is about trying to understand if public health insurance programmes help people spend less on receiving health care, and if that is the case, then how does it do that. Secondly, I look at if that in turn improves their health.
Finally, if you allow yourself to dream big, what do you hope your PhD research might lead to?
Like in many parts of the world, Cambodia is a country where cost is a significant factor for people when they need health care. And as a Cambodian, I remember vividly the first time I moved abroad and my flatmate at university made a snarky comment saying, “Imagine having to pay to see a doctor and get medicines” and I immediately snapped back “What do you mean? How else would you get to see a doctor?”.
That conversation took place a long time ago now, but it reminds me of how different the understanding of and attitude to health care cost is in different parts of the world. Growing up in Cambodia it was just a fact that you accepted; that needing medical care could be financially stressful and debilitating. I like to think that my work is part of changing that acceptance and it motivates me a lot.
In fact, in general I hope that research, like what I am doing in my PhD, will lead to fewer people in the world having to worry about needing healthcare because of financial consequences.
Hello Mostafa! Who are you?
I am a public health technical officer and epidemiologist with several years of experience of working in the World Health Organization (WHO). Originally, I trained as a pharmacist, back in Egypt, where I am from, and then I have worked in several different roles in public health, epidemiology, quality management, digital health, health systems and with health emergencies and communicable diseases.
I came to KI to do this PhD because I wanted to expand my methodological capacity and fill gaps in my methodological knowledge. Given my background the Global Disaster Medicine research group here seemed like a perfect fit for me, and I am very happy to be joining the team here.
Before moving to Stockholm, I lived in Gothenburg with my family; my wife and our young son. So right now, we are busy settling into life in Stockholm, getting used to a new pre-school and new playgrounds and all that sort of stuff that comes with moving when you have a kid.
Tell us a bit about your PhD
To give you the one sentence elevator pitch: I study how people seek health care when they have been displaced due to armed conflict and what sort of health care they access.
The research is done globally, and the field work will be on data from Lebanon, the country with the highest refugee population per capita in the world. It is also a country that experiences both acute and protracted and prolonged emergencies in terms of displacement and conflict, which makes it possible for us to do comparisons both between groups of displaced people and over time.
What do you hope your PhD might lead to?
Overall, I hope that if we can understand how people who are affected by armed conflicts go about trying to get health care – do they stockpile medicine, do they try to go back to where they have gotten health care before, do they seek new access to health care – then we can then serve them better and build support that is based on what we know their needs and their health seeking behaviour are like, not what we think they are.
More concretely I hope that NGOs and other actors who work to provide health care to refugees can use our results to improve their preparedness and response plans and have them be based on data and analysis.
I hope people will have equal access to patient cantered high-quality healthcare services globally despite the political and economic situation in their countries.
And last but not least, Wessam, tell us who you are:
I am a Swedish-Palestinian medical doctor, currently working as a clinician in the emergency department at the Karolinska University Hospital, where I have been since I completed by specialisation training in emergency medicine there in 2020. Before that I worked in various places, including in Lund, and I also studied at a few different universities, including the University of Liverpool where I completed my medical degree.
When I am not either working at the hospital or working on my PhD, I enjoy spending time with my family.
What is your PhD about?
In my PhD, I study prehospital care in armed conflict: the medical care people receive before they reach a hospital, whether from ambulance crews, first aid responders, or others. I focus on civilians, meaning ordinary people living in conflict areas, rather than soldiers.
This matters because most research on prehospital care in armed conflict has focused on military personnel, whose circumstances differ greatly from those of civilians. As a result, we know much less about what prehospital care looks like for civilians.
What motivates me is the belief that a better understanding of this care can help us improve it, and that this could mean more injured people in armed conflicts survive.
Finally, what do you hope your PhD might lead to?
Because so little research has been done in this area, I would be content if my work helped lead to a more systematic way of collecting and analysing data on prehospital care for civilians in armed conflict. That would give us a clearer picture of what this care actually looks like. In the long run, I hope this understanding will lead to services that are better at treating injured civilians, reducing both morbidity and mortality in this group.