Bridging the gap between community-led initiatives and humanitarian agencies to meet refugees’ health needs in Lebanon: a feasibility study

This study will explore the extent to which humanitarian agencies can build on initiatives led by refugee health professionals to pilot public health interventions for refugees in Lebanon. 

The process by which displaced health professionals provide health services to refugee communities is poorly documented. Our main goals are to identify initiatives led by displaced Syrian health professionals to meet refugees’ health needs in Lebanon and to determine whether identified initiatives could benefit from international support to implement public health interventions. We will conduct an ethnographic study in the Bekaa Valley, home to the majority of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, to understand the grassroots response led by Syrian health providers, along with a clearer appreciation of its structure and financing. We will also explore interactions between Syrian health providers and other agencies and organisations. 

Our findings will contribute to current humanitarian debates and will be used to inform a large-scale collaborative research proposal.