Exploring the Effects of Violent Conflict on the Human Capital of Palestinian Refugee Children

The challenge. Violent conflict has extensive repercussions that extend beyond direct fatalities and can influence well-being and human capital in many ways. The impacts of conflict, and ensuing economic and food-security crises, can disproportionately affect refugees and other vulnerable populations, especially children. A recent review on the effects of armed conflict on the health, development and education of children identified a need for future research on these outcomes over a longer life-course horizon. Unfortunately, such longitudinal research is often difficult to conduct because refugee and conflict-affected populations are often transient and difficult to follow-up. However, working with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), we enriched their administrative datasets and built a unique cohort of refugee children. We can use this data, together with publicly available data on conflict, to conduct such longitudinal and longer-term research.

Aims and objectives. Our proposal aims to investigate the effects of exposure to conflict on the human capital of Palestinian refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza. This proposed research will enable us to explore the effects of short- and long-term exposure to conflict from 2010 to 2020 on (1) family formation patterns (age at childbearing, family planning) (2) use of selected services (antenatal care, maternity care, immunizations, school attendance) (3) child well-being and development indicators (e.g. growth, school performance), and (4) all-cause mortality, including stillbirth, and risk-factors associated with early mortality (prematurity, size-for gestational-age).

How will objectives be achieved: data and approach. UNRWA provides Palestinian refugees with free primary health and elementary-school services, use of which is recorded in individual-based electronic databases. Our study will use UNRWA's electronic medical and education records from nearly 1 million Palestinian refugee children which we have linked with each other and cleaned. We will join these longitudinal data with conflict-event datasets from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). The conflict event datasets provide geospatial and time-specific conflict-related exposures. We will then use different statistical models to explore the effects of these different conflict events, conflict intensity and distance to conflict on the different refugee outcomes listed above (family formation, education and health service-use, child well-being, and child mortality outcomes). We will build a causal framework of how the timing and intensity of conflict exposures affect potential human capital outcomes using our data, and findings from the literature.

Application and benefits. This information will enable UNRWA policymakers, health and education service providers, and other humanitarian actors to develop targeted interventions to ameliorate the early life course of refugee children and more effectively argue for resource allocation to specific geographic areas and demographic groups. Additionally, the study will highlight the role of healthcare and education services for affected populations and generate an evidence-base to advocate for the mitigation of conflict-related harm.