Statistical Methods for Displaced and Refugee Populations and People Living in Conflict Zones

Sahar Zangeneh Chair
RTI International
 
Sahar Zangeneh Organizer
RTI International
 
Wednesday, Aug 6: 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
0375 
Invited Paper Session 
Music City Center 
Room: CC-207A 

Applied

Yes

Main Sponsor

Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights

Co Sponsors

Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Group
Section on Statistics in Epidemiology

Presentations

The Data Science of Refugee Camp Management

The confluence of climate crises and population growth indicate that the world will see more refugee camps in the future. We need to get smarter about how to manage such camps, and one component of camp management rests squarely on traditional official statistics. One needs to know the kinds of data that a census bureau collects, and the kinds of data that a public health service gathers. One needs to track education and camp security. And it is vital to improve the on-boarding and off-boarding processes in a refugee camp. This talk describes preliminary work in that direction. 

Keywords

census data

public health data

education 

Speaker

David Banks, Duke University

Quantifying conflict violence: Examples from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Collecting data during and in the immediate aftermath of a conflict is difficult and dangerous. Often the result is a patchwork of records covering different portions of the conflict. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) makes sense of disperate collections of information and relies on statistical tools to draw the most rigorous conclusions possible. This presentation will include case studies and examples from HRDAG's work around the world. 

Speaker

Megan Price, Human Rights Data Analysis Group

Capture-recapture analysis and scenario-based projections to reveal the death toll in the Gaza Strip

The war in the Gaza Strip has resulted in significant civilian mortality and infrastructure damage, creating a public health emergency. Intense Israeli military war has caused massive destruction, displaced nearly 2 million people, and severely disrupted essential services. This seminar examines mortality in Gaza over the past 21 months, addressing health information system challenges, mortality projections under different scenarios, and data collection during conflict. The presentation will present recent mortality estimates using capture-recapture analysis method.  

Speaker

Zeina Jamaluddine, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative: An International Data Resource for Research in Conflict-Driven Human Trafficking

The UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) has established a Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC) as a global data resource on trafficking data. The centerpiece of the Collaborative's work is a public, open source, anonymized global database of trafficking reports. With almost 240,000 records as of Februray, 2025, the database includes many important features including country of victim's citizenship as well as where exploitation occurred. This supports analysis of the impact of conflict-driven human trafficking on displaced and refugee populations. This presentation provides a background on the Collaborative and the database, its contents and applications, and examples of research. A case study is presented on human trafficking trends in Eastern Europe are explored, which have shifted to focus on Ukraine in recent years.  

Speaker

David Corliss, Grafham Analytics