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Working in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul, the authors assessed the relative contribution of daily stressors and war-related experiences of violence and loss to levels of depression, PTSD, impaired functioning, and a culturally specific measure of general psychological distress. For women, daily stressors were a better predictor than war experiences of all mental health outcomes except for PTSD; for men, daily stressors were a better predictor of depression and functional impairment, while war experiences and daily stressors were similarly predictive of general distress. For men, daily stressors moderated the relationship between war experiences and PTSD, which was significant only under conditions of low daily stress. The study's implications for research and intervention in conflict and post-conflict settings are considered.

This study examined the validity and utility of PTSD among 320 adults in Afghanistan. Findings support the validity of PTSD in this cultural context: PTSD symptoms were highly prevalent, shared common variance, and correlated as expected with exposure to traumatic stress. However, only limited support was found for the clinical utility of PTSD. Other types of psychiatric symptomatology, including depression and a culturally specific measure of general distress, correlated more highly with traumatic stress than did PTSD; and PTSD accounted for limited variance in functioning beyond that explained by depression and general distress. Implications for research and intervention are considered.

Community and health worker engagement will be key to polio eradication in Karachi, Pakistan. In this study, the authors conducted participant observation, interviews, and a document review in SITE Town, Karachi, an area that in recent years has harbored poliovirus. SITE's diverse population includes large numbers of internally displaced persons who are disproportionately affected by polio and are more likely than other populations to refuse the polio vaccine. Vaccine acceptance and worker motivation in SITE Town were shaped by the discrepancy in funding and attention for polio eradication campaigns as compared with routine services. Parental vaccine refusals stemmed from a distrust of government and international actors that provided few services but administered polio vaccine door-to-door every month. Addressing this discrepancy could therefore be key to eliminating polio. The authors suggest short-term improvements to routine immunization and sanitation in key polio endemic areas, coupled with a longterm focus on sustainable improvements to routine immunization and broader health services.

In recent years, scholars in the fields of refugee studies and forced migration have extended their areas of interest and research into the phenomenon of displacement, human response to it, and ways to intervene to assist those affected, increasingly focusing on the emotional and social impact of displacement on refugees and their adjustment to the traumatic experiences. In the process, the positive concept of "psychosocial wellness" was developed as discussed in this volume. In it noted scholars address the strengths and limitations of their investigations, citing examples from their work with refugees from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Palestine, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Eastern Europe, Bosnia, and Chile. The authors discuss how they define "psychosocial wellness," as well as the issues of sample selection, measurement, reliability and validity, refugee narratives and "voices," and the ability to generalize findings and apply these to other populations. The key question that has guided many of these investigations and underlies the premise of this book is "what happens to an ordinary person who has experienced an extraordinary event?" This volume also highlights the fact that those involved in such research must also deal with their own emotional responses as they hear victims tell of killing, torture, humiliation, and dispossesion. The volume will therefore appeal to practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing, and anthropology. However, its breadth and the evaluation of the strengths and disadvantages of both qualitative and quantitative methods also make it an excellent text for students

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction The Health Consequences of War -- Part I Afghanistan and Pakistan -- 1 Childbirth in the Context of Conflict in Afghanistan -- 2 Drone Strikes and Vaccination Campaigns How the War on Terror Helps Sustain Polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- 3 Remaining Undone Heroin in the Time of Serial War -- 4 Dignity under Extreme Duress The Moral and Emotional Landscape of Local Humanitarian Workers in the Afghan- Pakistan Border Areas -- Part II Iraq -- 5 War and the Public Health Disaster in Iraq -- 6 The Political Capital of War Wounds -- 7 Iraqis' Cancer Itineraries War, Medical Travel, and Therapeutic Geographies -- 8 War and Its Consequences for Cancer Trends and Services in Iraq -- Part III United States -- 9 Imagining Military Suicide -- 10 Afterwar Work for Life -- 11 "It's Not Okay" War's Toll on Health Brought Home to Communities and Environments -- Appendix The Body Count -- About the Editors -- About the Contributors -- Index