How do international humanitarian aid workers stay healthy in the face of adversity?

ABSTRACT:

Background

International humanitarian aid workers (iHAWs) are motivated strongly to travel abroad to help communities affected by war, famine, disaster and disease. They expose themselves to dangers and hardships during their field assignments. Despite working under such challenging circumstances, most workers remain healthy. The objective of the present study was to unravel the mechanism that enables workers to remain healthy under the same circumstances that affect these communities. We hypothesised that the different components of the Sense of Coherence (SOC) health mechanism mediate the relationship between field stressors and post-assignment health.

Methods and findings

The stress-health model was tested among 465 international aid workers using a longitudinal pre-post

SUBMITTER: De Jong K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9668143 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature