Power & communities (MSF Scientific Days International 2022)

MSF Scientific Days in Latin America 2024 focused on two thematic areas:

Climate Emergency in the Americas: What Are We Seeing as a Medical Humanitarian Organization and How Are We Responding?

MSF has long responded to health crises aggravated by the climate emergency —such as disease outbreaks, food insecurity, and displacement—and these events are intensifying in severity and frequency. This session presented examples of how MSF is adapting to address climate-related emergencies in the region, and explored strategies for future humanitarian action.

Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Interventions in Violence, Migration, and Indigenous Health Projects

This session explored the complexities of providing mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) in some of the region’s most challenging settings. It focused on interventions in areas affected by violence, the mental health impact on migrants, and the unique needs of indigenous populations. The discussion highlighted innovative strategies, culturally sensitive approaches, and the importance of integrating MHPSS into healthcare projects in these complex settings.

As we mark World Refugee Day (20 June 2022), over 100 million people globally are forcibly displaced from their home—the highest number ever recorded, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The health impacts of this displacement are dire: millions of people exposed to violence, infectious disease, and exclusion from health care during often-treacherous journeys or in detention centers and refugee camps.

Here we bring you a selection of MSF research aimed at better understanding and meeting the medical needs of populations along their migration route. Some studies describe the physical and psychological wounds our teams witness among specific populations—from unaccompanied minors to people detained under inhumane conditions in Libya or rescued from drowning after risking everything in perilous Mediterranean Sea crossings. Others assess ways to improve models of care for refugees with chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes, or for tackling infectious diseases such as diphtheria and hepatitis E in overcrowded, unhygienic camps.

The World Health Organization estimates that 410,000 people developed a drug-resistant tuberculosis infection (DR-TB) in 2022, only 40% of whom were diagnosed and started on treatment—and only 63% then cured. Given all these points of failure, innovation in preventing, diagnosing and treating DR-TB cannot come fast enough. To mark World TB Day (24 March 2024) the content collection linked below highlights recent work by MSF and collaborators to help change this grim picture. The TB-PRACTECAL and endTB studies delivered robust evidence for shorter, safer, more effective drug regimens that are already saving lives worldwide. Other studies explore new approaches to preventive treatment and simpler, quicker, accurate detection of TB and drug resistance—especially among difficult-to-diagnose populations such as children and people living with HIV. But to impact DR-TB globally these innovations must become widely accessible. This requires changes on many fronts, as described in an accompanying Collection (Expanding Access to Lifesaving New TB Tools).

INTRODUCTION
Community engagement (CE) rose to prominence with the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978, and remains a concept lauded by global health actors, including MSF. CE is often desc...

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MSF Scientific Days Latin America 2024

World Refugee Day 2022

New tools and approaches to drug-resistant TB

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine": perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine”: perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine”: perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine": perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine”: perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“We tell them to sit, listen to information, and take their medicine”: perceptions, practices, and potential for community engagement within MSF

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Their suffering also plagues us”: moral experiences of MSF staff providing end-of-life care in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Comparative evaluation of event-based and indicator-based components of MSF’s “Tea Team Surveillance System,” Somali Region, Ethiopia

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Why mothers give birth at home: exploration of Rohingya refugees’ perceptions, experiences, and expectations regarding maternity services in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone

“Where my pocket can afford is where I will take my child:” the influence of structural factors on health-seeking behaviour, Sierra Leone