A new report published by the WHO and entitled ‘The impact of economic sanctions on health and health systems in low- and middle-income countries’ examines the potential adverse consequences for health and healthcare in countries subject to economic sanctions, scrutinizing a contested evidence base and advocating for greater international humanitarian oversight of these increasingly frequent measures – which often involve fragile and low-income countries.

Published by the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean in Cairo, Egypt (WHO-EMRO), the report was co-authored by Dr. Matteo Pinna Pintor and Prof. Marc Suhrcke of LISER’s Research Programme on Health and Health Systems, and by Dr. Christoph Hamelmann, Chef de Cabinet at WHO-EMRO. Based on state-of-the-art systematic review protocols, the study looks at more than 180 empirical studies and over three decades of scholarship by epidemiologists and social scientists, achieving unprecedented degree of comprehensiveness and methodological quality.

Through a synthesis of quantitative studies and an in-depth summary of field reports and contextual evidence, the report suggests the presence of lasting barriers to unhindered trade in food, medicines and other commodities indispensable for survival during international disputes. The report can be broken down into four main parts:

1. The methodological outline, laying out the criteria to identify and assess the quality of existing studies.
2. The evidence synthesis of quantitative estimates, showing that a high proportion of reviewed studies found adverse impacts on outcomes like early-age mortality and malnutrition, life expectancy, and availability of pharmaceuticals. Moreover, these studies were neither of lower quality, nor looking at earlier sanction episodes.
3. A thematic narrative, discussing the diversity of sanctions and the multiple ways in which health can be affected.
4. A general conclusion, outlining procedures to prevent civilian harm and recommendations for future research.

Discover the WHO report here