Social science & medicine
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Social science & medicine · Jan 2019
Resilience capacities of health systems: Accommodating the needs of Palestinian refugees from Syria.
Resilience is increasingly recognised as a key process mitigating the impact of shocks and stressors on functioning. The literature on individual and community resilience is being extended to address characteristics of resilient service delivery systems in contexts of adversity. The validity and utility of a capacity-oriented resilience framework (including absorption, adaptation and transformation) is examined with respect to the functioning of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) health systems in Lebanon and Jordan in the context of the Syrian crisis. ⋯ While manifest as technical capacities, these clearly drew upon solidarity and commitment linked to the political context of the Palestinian experience. The study adds to the limited literature on health system and organizational resilience and indicates that capacity-oriented framings of resilience are valuable in extracting generalizable lessons for health systems facing adversity. The proposed resilience framework promises to guide strategies for sustained care delivery in these contexts.