Epidemics/Public Health and Conflict in Academic Journals: The Journal of Medicine, Conflict and Survival and The Journal of Conflict and Health

Abstract

Objective: The conflict, peace and health nexus is a growing area of inter-disciplinary research. There are a few academic journals dedicated to this very issue. Despite the journals’ long age and reach, they tend to discuss on very specific aspects and locations of conflicts and public health concerns. There is also scant research on the qualities and shortcomings of these research works and the journals. This study analyses the research qualities and shortcomings of two established academic journals: The Journal of Medicine, Conflict and Survival and the Journal of Conflict and Health.
Methods: This study compared the contents of the research papers of The Journal of Medicine, Conflict and Survival (MCS) from the year 1997 to 2017 and of the Journal of Conflict and Health’s (CH) published from 2007 to 2017. Systematic review and quantitative content
analysis methods were used for this purpose.
Results: The data shows that there are comparative similarities between the two journals in most of the research measurement criteria such as causation analysis, disease and conflict types, coverage of gender, authors’ origin and theoretical framework. There were also significant differences in terms of the number of authors, the geographic focus of the journals, article length and research approach. There were also differences in the amount of empirical data, analysis and presentation of the research, CH having more of these.
Conclusion: The findings of the research show that there is a huge gap in terms of important scientific research components that the academic research papers should contain and also the geographic diversity of research authors and the diversity of topics. The study recommends improvements in these areas.