Hundreds of millions of people around the world are affected by crises, including natural disasters, armed conflict, forced displacement, and major disease outbreaks. The frequency, intensity, and cost of these crises has steadily increased over the past several decades, trends that are expected to continue with ongoing threats from extreme weather and emerging pandemics. These crises have direct and indirect impacts on health, disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, conducting health research in these settings is very difficult and there is a limited amount of scientific evidence that can inform how governments, nongovernmental organizations and other international organizations respond.
The Fogarty Center for Global Health Studies (CGHS) leads a project exploring the role of global health research in the context of crises. The goals of the project are to: (1) catalyze timely, high-quality, ethical and actionable research in crisis settings; and (2) strengthen the capacity of scientists, especially from LMICs, to conduct health research in crisis settings. Key partners in this activity include NIH Institutes and Centers, other U.S. government agencies, academic researchers from the U.S. and abroad, nongovernmental organizations and international organizations involved in crisis response. This field of research can also benefit the U.S. as lessons learned from global crises can improve the government's ability to respond to disasters domestically.
Email List
To stay informed about this project, please subscribe to Fogarty's Crisis Health Research email discussion group. To subscribe, send an email to listserv@list.nih.gov with the text "Subscribe humanitarian-health-research" as the body of the email, with no other text in the subject line or body of the email. Check your email to confirm your subscription.
Activities
GFH2R 2025
GFH2R 2025 seeks to bring researchers and other organizations (including NGOs, local policymakers, and international agencies) together to share experiences and promote collaboration around health research in crisis settings.
Update: The GFH2R 2025 meeting originally scheduled for May 2025 is postponed. More information will be added to this website when available. For inquiries, please contact
GFH2R@mail.nih.gov.
Community engagement in the context of crises
From August to October of 2022, CGHS conducted a consultation on Community Engagement in the Context of Crises with global experts in health in crises and/or community engagement. The aim of the consultation was to better understand how CGHS might facilitate dialogue among researchers and other critical partners, develop useful resources, and highlight the need for effective community engagement in health research in crisis settings.
Case Studies on confronting the challenges of health research in crises
Fogarty commissioned a collection of case study articles published across
BMC Public Health and Conflict and Health. The papers describe the challenges and lessons learned by scientists conducting research in crises. In May 2021, CGHS hosted a virtual event to launch the collection.
Publication on health research in crises
The scientific co-chairs and project team co-authored an analysis paper published in
BMJ Global Health (Nov 11, 2019).
Workshop
In April 2018, Fogarty hosted a
workshop at NIH with key partners from multiple disciplines, areas of expertise and geographic regions. The meeting explored key themes such as research methodologies, implementation science, community engagement, research capacity, partnerships, and ethics.
Photo credit: @UNICEF/UN029108/Phelps
Resources from Partners
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NIH/Fogarty International Center: The Fogarty International Center provides a
Funding Newsletter with NIH funding opportunities related to global health, including funding available to non-U.S. organizations.
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NIH Disaster Research Response Program(DR2): The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Library of Medicine lead the
DR2 program, which aims to create a disaster research system consisting of coordinated environmental health disaster research data collection tools and a network of trained research responders. DR2 provides training, funding, and a Resources Portal of tools to empower human health research in response to disasters and public health emergencies. See a list of
funding opportunities.
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Human Mobility and HIV Research Program: The National Institute of Mental Health leads this program, which supports research on the impact of human mobility on prevention and treatment outcomes in individuals at risk or living with HIV. “Mobility" is defined to include forced displacement, trafficking, refugees, and internal displacement.
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Global Mental Health and Human Mobility Research Program: Also led by the National Institute of Mental Health, this program supports research on the increasing mental health challenges faced by mobile populations at all stages of migration, including forced displacement, fleeing war and conflict, extreme weather, and other types of mobility.
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Elrha: A UK-based charity that finds solutions to complex emergencies through research and innovation. Elrha's
research program funds research studies that seek to address public health issues by gathering evidence with the potential to contribute to improved public health outcomes in crisis contexts
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International Development Research Centre (IDRC): The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) champions and funds research and innovation within and alongside developing regions to drive global change as part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts. See IDRC’s
funding opportunities.
Scientific Co-Chairs
- Sabina Faiz Rashid, BRAC University
- Shannon Doocy, Johns Hopkins University
Inquiries
Updated February 24, 2025