Humanitarian crises such as armed conflict and displacement and long-term complex crises, impact most on civilians, particularly women and children. In addition to the event’s direct impacts, women, adolescents and girls in such settings are also at much greater risk of violence and exploitation, and have much more difficulty accessing services to address these impacts (Rubenstein and Stark 2017).

In such settings, health services are usually the most common, and often the only point at which women and girls come into contact with agencies that can intervene to address not only their immediate health needs, but support them to access services that improve their safety and autonomy.

Building on humanitarian implementation research projects we are already conducting with communities, practitioners, and policy makers on primary health care, maternal and child health, livelihood programs for women, and gender-based violence in a range of humanitarian settings, we aim to develop a large-scale, multi-country collaborative project that will support learning across these settings on how best to meet the needs of women, adolescent, and girls at risk of violence and exploitation. In partnership with communities, practitioners, and humanitarian organisations, our goal is to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions that enable health services to identify those at risk, and coordinate multi-sectoral services that will improve the safety and autonomy of women, adolescents, and girls in humanitarian settings.

Track record
The Humanitarian Health Research Initiative at the ANU Research School of Population Health works with collaborators across the ANU and a range of international partners to conduct implementation research that addresses the barriers vulnerable populations in crises and complex emergencies face in accessing health services. We currently implement operational research activities in partnership with research end-users in Sierra Leone (maternal and child health), Papua New Guinea (gender-based violence and emergency obstetric care), Sri Lanka (intimate partner violence and substance misuse), and on child mental health and infectious disease outbreaks (multiple humanitarian settings).

Drawing on the expertise of researchers within the Gender Institute and broader ANU, as well as existing collaborations with service partners, communities and researchers internationally, we seek to bring the varied findings and experience form our past and current work together into comprehensive, feasible and adaptable models of support for women, adolescents, and girls that can be implemented in diverse humanitarian settings.