About
The protracted war in Syria that began in March 2011, has resulted in the forced displacement of nearly 12 million Syrians, half of whom are now refugees. The Syrian American Medical Society supported the provision of critical under-cover health care services to the those fleeing from their homes and those trapped in cities that were being shelled. These health operations were among the first in the history of warfare where digital health records were maintained at source. Though rudimentary, this information provides insights into the epidemiology of conditions presenting to these clinics as the war proceeded the dwindling nature and scope of services provided, opening and closure of facilities and the diminished human resources available to care for both chronic diseases and emergent trauma.
We are analyzing data from nearly 2 million patient visits, in collaboration with members of the Lancet Commission on Syria. The data are in Arabic, and in over ten thousand non-standardized Excel spreadsheets. The non-standard data have been extracted using machine learning techniques and human translators and supervisors. Our findings will be published in 2023.
See sample of spreadsheet with the data: [PIC]
See sample of the epidemiology of the data from X date to X date [GRAPH]
Team
- Jennifer Leaning, Principal Investigator
- Satchit Balsari, Team Lead
- Clay Heaton, Data Scientist
- Abhishek Bhatia, Data Scientist
- Tasher Losseneger, Research Assistant
- Syrian team members ← Abhi can provide.
