Healthcare Accessibility for Syrian Refugees: Understanding Trends, Host Countries’ Responses and Impacts on Refugees’ Health

The Syrian civil war, now in its 6th year is the biggest refugee and humanitarian crisis in present times. Since March 2011, over 11 million Syrians have fled out of their country to neighboring countries, Europe and other parts of the world. Associated with refugee movement is the movement and spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases among Syrian refugees and beyond. The war also continues to affect the psychosocial and emotional states of Syrian refugees, especially young people and children. This paper seeks to identify trends in health conditions among Syrian refugees and those who are internally displaced within the country. It focuses on Syrian refugee mothers and children (0-5 years old), who are most vulnerable to the Syrian crisis. This research paper is divided into 4 parts. The first part explores population trends, health conditions and diseases among globally displaced persons, including refugees. The second part of the paper dives into the health status and conditions of internally displaced Syrians. The third part explores the prevalence of certain health conditions among Syrian refugees and responses of host countries—Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan— to refugees and their healthcare. The last section discusses main findings and attempts to outline some recommendations to mitigate the challenges of healthcare access to Syrians, both internally displaced and refugees