Alcohol and substance use in humanitarian and post-conflict situations

Abstract

A wide range of substance use problems are prevalent in a variety of humanitarian settings. The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support during emergencies highlights that during humanitarian and post conflict situations, substance use is associated with problems including gender-based violence, organized crime and the serious neglect of children. Although substance use is a public health issue in humanitarian settings it has always been a neglected area of public health with very limited information available in both published and grey literature on this matter. This review presents an overview of the problem and existing assessment and interventions tools to address substance use in conflict and post-conflict situations.