Mervat Alhaffar

Biographic Data

ID6959338
NAMEMervat Alhaffar
GIVEN NAMESMervat
FAMILY NAMEAlhaffar
SIGNATUREALHAFFAR M
AFFILIATIONSLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
ORCID0000-0002-3737-8790
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS14
TOTAL CITATIONS2
AUTHOR COUNT14
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2020
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX1

  • Multisectoral collaboration on violence against women and children in Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon

    Open AccessMervat Alhaffar, Nour Horanieh et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2026

    Increasing global evidence highlights the significant intersections between violence against women (VAW) and violence against children (VAC), emphasising the need for collaboration among actors addressing VAW and VAC. However, tensions regarding prioritising women’s and children’s needs have led to fragmented approaches, in addition to knowledge gaps regarding effective collaborative efforts. This study aims to assess how the coordination between…

  • The ‘Other’ face of health security

    Open AccessMax D López Toledano, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2026

    The ‘health security’ paradigm has reshaped global health since Covid-19, framing infectious diseases as existential threats and targeting marginalised populations as risky ‘others’ to surveil and contain. However, its exclusionary consequences for those ‘othered’ remain underexamined, particularly from the perspective of lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic and archival case studies in Lebanon, Nepal, Serbia, and Syria (2021–2025), we exami…

  • Barriers to and enablers of childhood immunization uptake in Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia, and Somali Regions

    Open AccessAmare Zewdie, Minyahil Tadesse Boltena et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2026

    Ethiopia has the fourth-highest number of zero-dose children globally. Negative experiences and perceptions of immunization are recognized barriers to vaccination uptake but warrant context-specific investigation. We explored barriers and enablers to immunization uptake in selected regions of Ethiopia. We conducted a formative qualitative study involving 18 focus group discussions with men and women, in-depth interviews with 23 mothers of childre…

  • “I just wanted to be like everyone else…”

    Open AccessZamzam I A Ali, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2025

    Somalia has the highest estimated prevalence of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) globally. However, significant literature gaps exist on associated knowledge and contextual factors within the country, particularly among affected women. This study thus aimed to explore Somali women’s perspectives about FGM/C and its potential abandonment in Somalia. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study, informed by critical feminist and social no…

  • Decision-making for childhood vaccination in crisis settings

    Open AccessPage M Light, Neha Singh et al.ARTICLEConflict and Health2024

    The WHO Framework should be provided in more languages, and vaccination actors at local and national level should be engaged to improve its practicality and increase awareness of its aims. In order to reach zero-dose children, vaccines must be made available for use in expanded age groups, which is sometimes not currently feasible within the Gavi/UNICEF procurement system. Clarifying this policy would allow relevant organisations to reach more ze…

  • ‘ Covid-19 is just another way to die… ’

    Open AccessYazan Douedari, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    INTRODUCTION: Governance of COVID-19 responses has been challenging for all countries. Syria has been particularly challenged due to protracted multiparty conflict and debilitated health systems fragmented across different areas of control. To improve response governance, better understanding of frontline response policy implementation across the country is needed. This study thus explored perspectives of COVID-19 response governance among frontl…

  • Adult mortality patterns in Yemen before and during armed conflict

    Open AccessCatherine R Mcgowan, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEConflict and Health2023

    Our data suggest increased mortality during the war/pandemic period, compared to the pre-war period, among older Yemeni adults. However, our findings require careful interpretation as our study design cannot establish causation, and as our small and non-representative sample appeared skewed towards higher-income, urban communities. Surveys of diaspora populations offer a promising means of describing mortality patterns in crisis-affected populati…

  • We are trying to live in a normal way, but nothing is normal about us anymore…’

    Open AccessMervat Alhaffar, Aseel Hamid et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

    INTRODUCTION: The Syrian conflict, which has included mass killings, displacement, infrastructure destruction and illegal targeting of health facilities and staff mainly by the Syrian government and allies, is in its 10th year. This study explored the lived experiences of women within healthcare, both as health workers and service users, in Syrian opposition-controlled areas (OCAs). METHODS: We chose a qualitative study design, with 20 in-depth i…

  • Adult mortality before and during the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic in nine communities of Yemen

    Open AccessMervat Alhaffar, Huda Basaleem et al.ARTICLEConflict and Health2022

    We found some evidence of a peak in mortality during the early phase of the pandemic, but death rate estimates were otherwise too imprecise to enable strong inference on trends. Estimates suggested substantial mortality elevations from baseline during the crisis period, but are subject to serious potential biases. The study highlighted challenges of data collection in this insecure, politically contested environment

  • Excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic

    Open AccessEmilie Koum Besson, Émilie S Koum Besson et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    BACKGROUND: The burden of COVID-19 in low-income and conflict-affected countries remains unclear, largely reflecting low testing rates. In parts of Yemen, reports indicated a peak in hospital admissions and burials during May-June 2020. To estimate excess mortality during the epidemic period, we quantified activity across all identifiable cemeteries within Aden governorate (population approximately 1 million) by analysing very high-resolution sat…

  • Whose voices should shape global health education? Curriculum codesign and codelivery by people with direct expertise and lived experience

    Open AccessMariam Sbaiti, Mike J Streule et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    There are contrasting opinions of what global health (GH) curricula should contain and limited discussion on whose voices should shape it. In GH education, those with first-hand expertise of living and working in the contexts discussed in GH classrooms are often absent when designing curricula. To address this, we developed a new model of curriculum codesign called Virtual Roundtable for Collaborative Education Design (ViRCoED). This paper descri…

  • We need someone to deliver our voices’

    Open AccessYazan Douedari, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEConflict and Health2021

    The need to generate evidence in spaces considered insecure and inhabited by potentially extremely vulnerable individuals (e.g. conflict-affected people who may not have means to move) has led researchers to study conflict-affected settings remotely. Increased attention to remote research approaches from social scientists, due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions, is sparking interest on appropriate methods and tools. Drawing on several years'…

  • Lessons from humanitarian clusters to strengthen health system responses to mass displacement in low and middle-income countries

    Open AccessAnna Durrance-Bagale, Omar Mukhtar Salman et al.ARTICLEJournal of Migration and Health2020

    The humanitarian cluster approach was established in 2005 but clarity on how lessons from humanitarian clusters can inform and strengthen health system responses to mass displacement in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) is lacking. We conducted a scoping review to examine the extent and nature of existing research and identify relevant lessons. We used Arksey and O'Malley's scoping framework with Levac's 2010 revisions and Khalil's 2016 refi…

  • Ten years of war! You expect people to fear a ‘germ’?”

    Open AccessYazan Douedari, Mervat Alhaffar et al.ARTICLEJournal of Migration and Health2020Cited by: 2References: 6

    This study is the first to explore perspectives and lived experiences of internally-displaced Syrians in the weeks prior to the COVID-19 epidemic in Northwest Syria. The challenging living conditions of internally-displaced people in Syria are further threatened by the spread of COVID-19. Tailored control measures are urgently needed to reduce COVID-19 transmission in camps