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The intergenerational effects of war on the health of children
Delan Devakumar1*, Marion Birch2, David Osrin1, Egbert Sondorp3 and Jonathan CK Wells4
* Corresponding author: Delan Devakumar d.devakumar@ucl.ac.uk
Author Affiliations
1 Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
2 Medact, London, UK
3 Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
4 Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK
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BMC Medicine 2014, 12:57 doi:10.1186/1741-7015-12-57
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/57
Received: 6 October 2013
Accepted: 26 February 2014
Published: 2 April 2014
? 2014 Devakumar et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Abstract
Background
The short- and medium-term effects of conflict on population health are reasonably well documented. Less considered are its consequences across generations and potential harms to the health of children yet to be born.
Discussion
Looking first at the nature and effects of exposures during conflict, and then at the potential routes through which harm may propagate within families, we consider the intergenerational effects of four features of conflict: violence, challenges to mental health, infection and malnutrition. Conflict-driven harms are transmitted through a complex permissive environment that includes biological, cultural and economic factors, and feedback loops between sources of harm and weaknesses in individual and societal resilience to them. We discuss the multiplicative effects of ongoing conflict when hostilities are prolonged.
Summary
We summarize many instances in which the effects of war can propagate across generations. We hope that the evidence laid out in the article will stimulate research and ? more importantly ? contribute to the discussion of the costs of war; particularly in the longer-term in post-conflict situations in which interventions need to be sustained and adapted over many years.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/57
Delan Devakumar1*, Marion Birch2, David Osrin1, Egbert Sondorp3 and Jonathan CK Wells4
* Corresponding author: Delan Devakumar d.devakumar@ucl.ac.uk
Author Affiliations
1 Institute for Global Health, University College London, London, UK
2 Medact, London, UK
3 Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
4 Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, Institute of Child Health, University College London, London, UK
For all author emails, please log on.
BMC Medicine 2014, 12:57 doi:10.1186/1741-7015-12-57
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/57
Received: 6 October 2013
Accepted: 26 February 2014
Published: 2 April 2014
? 2014 Devakumar et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Abstract
Background
The short- and medium-term effects of conflict on population health are reasonably well documented. Less considered are its consequences across generations and potential harms to the health of children yet to be born.
Discussion
Looking first at the nature and effects of exposures during conflict, and then at the potential routes through which harm may propagate within families, we consider the intergenerational effects of four features of conflict: violence, challenges to mental health, infection and malnutrition. Conflict-driven harms are transmitted through a complex permissive environment that includes biological, cultural and economic factors, and feedback loops between sources of harm and weaknesses in individual and societal resilience to them. We discuss the multiplicative effects of ongoing conflict when hostilities are prolonged.
Summary
We summarize many instances in which the effects of war can propagate across generations. We hope that the evidence laid out in the article will stimulate research and ? more importantly ? contribute to the discussion of the costs of war; particularly in the longer-term in post-conflict situations in which interventions need to be sustained and adapted over many years.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/57