The impact of the Syrian conflict on population well-being

Abstract

The United Nations described the Syrian conflict as the worst man-made disaster since World War II. We adopted a global perspective in examining the impact of the Syrian conflict on Syrians' physical, mental, and social well-being using the Gallup World Poll. Face-to-face interview data of 11,452 Syrian participants from 2008 to 2015 show that Syrians' physical (e.g., access to shelter), mental (e.g., life satisfaction), and social (e.g., social support) well-being decline substantially. Syrians who reported being exposed to the conflict are similarly affected compared to those without direct exposure, suggesting country-wide spillover effects. Global data covering 1.7 million participants across 163 countries from 2006 to 2016 show during the conflict, Syria's precipitous decline in well-being is unparalleled in the world, even when compared to countries similarly experiencing war, protests, and disasters. Our findings reinforce the vital importance of an accelerated peace process to restore well-being in Syria.

Fig. 1. The geographical distribution of participants and well-being in Syria.

Panel a presents the number of participants in each governorate. Panel b presents the geographical differences in the declines in physical, mental, and social well-being from 2008 to 2015. This figure was created using QGIS developed by the QGIS Development Team (http://qgis.osgeo.org). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 2. Overall trends in well-being in Syria from 2008 to 2015.

The shades of red represent the severity of the conflict based on monthly death toll data from the Syrian Center for Statistics and Research. Error bars indicate 95% CI (±1.96* standard error). This figure was created using R developed by the R Core Development Team (https://www.r-project.org/). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 3. Temporal comparisons in physical, mental and social well-being.

Panel a compares the changes in Syria to other World Health Organization (WHO) regions. Panel b compares Syria to other countries that experienced war, protests, and natural disasters. The dotted line indicates the start of events. SI Appendix, Supplementary Fig. 4 and Supplementary Table 10, presents the trends for all 13 indicators. This figure was created using R developed by the R Core Development Team (https://www.r-project.org/). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 4. The temporal change in the level of life satisfaction in 163 countries from 2006 to 2016.

Syria’s decline in life satisfaction is the largest among all surveyed countries. This figure was created using QGIS developed by the QGIS Development Team (http://qgis.osgeo.org). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.