The Relationship Between Political Violence and Pandemics
Quartararo, Michael R.
2021
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There continues to be scholarly debate about the role political conflict has in the spread (or suppression) of pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has proven the continued importance of understanding pandemics, and the mechanisms which cause them to expand. HIV/AIDS in particular continues to ravage much of Africa, specifically the sub-Saharan region. Numerous sub-Saharan countries have endured both ... read morea political conflict as well as HIV/AIDs pandemic in the past 30 years. In my thesis, I have chosen three of these states (The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Burundi), and test a variety of factors caused by the conflict in order to determine if a relationship exists between these changes and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These risk factors include deaths due to the conflict, healthcare expenditures, the number of refugees, and the number of IDPs. My findings suggest that there are worthwhile correlations that exist between these variables, with a noteworthy inverse relationship between healthcare expenditures and both new infections/deaths from HIV/AIDS. The strength of this relationship suggests that any method in which the healthcare sector can be bolstered, such as through international aid, could mitigate the impact HIV/AIDS pandemics have on states undergoing political conflict. These findings also highlight the need for further research on this subject, both to determine whether these relationships exist in other states as well as to test new variables caused by conflict.
Advisor: Professor David Ekbladhread less - ID:
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