On 14 August 2026, an international research team led by researchers from Al-Quds University (Palestine), The University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR, China), and North Sichuan Medical College (China) published a Correspondence in Nature Medicine entitled “Reconstructing disease burden data in armed conflict.”
The work was jointly led by Hussein ALMasri of Al-Quds University and Zining Luo of North Sichuan Medical College, who contributed equally to the article. The study also involved Belal Aldabbour from the Islamic University of Gaza and Huda Lahham from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Professor Junwen Wang from the Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, served as a corresponding author, together with Huda Lahham from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The Correspondence highlights an urgent but often overlooked consequence of armed conflict: the loss of the health information systems needed to understand long-term disease burden. In Gaza, the destruction of health facilities, shortages of essential medicines, disruptions to laboratory testing and referral systems, and interruptions in the management of chronic diseases have made conventional disease surveillance increasingly difficult.
Beyond documenting immediate casualties and health-system damage, the authors argue that it is equally important to reconstruct evidence on the longer-term health consequences of conflict—including delayed diagnosis, interrupted treatment, loss of continuity of care, and the resulting burden from diseases such as cancer, diabetes, renal disease and maternal health conditions.
The article therefore calls for a broader international commitment to transform fragmented crisis records into actionable and sustainable public-health evidence, while strengthening locally led research capacity. Reconstructing disease burden data is not only a scientific exercise; it provides an essential evidence base for health-system recovery, resource allocation and long-term health planning in Palestine, while offering a framework that may also be relevant to other conflict-affected regions.
From a publication to a long-term international collaboration
This Correspondence forms part of a broader Palestine Disease Burden Project, an international initiative jointly initiated by researchers from Al-Quds University, The University of Hong Kong, and North Sichuan Medical College.
The collaboration has subsequently expanded to include Palestinian clinicians and researchers, the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and collaborators from Peking University, bringing together expertise in clinical medicine, public health, epidemiology, data science and health-system research.
A major component of this collaboration is the development of the Palestine Disease Burden platform, an online research infrastructure designed to consolidate, reconstruct and continuously update fragmented health and disease-burden data relevant to Palestine:
Palestine Disease Burden:
http://www.palestinediseaseburden.com/
Researchers from The University of Hong Kong have played a central role in the initiation and continued development of the project, including its research framework, international collaboration, data reconstruction work and the development of the public-facing disease-burden platform. The project is designed not as a one-time analysis, but as a continuously maintained research infrastructure that can support future epidemiological studies, public-health planning and evidence-based reconstruction of the Palestinian health system.
Through this collaboration, the team hopes to move from documenting what has been lost during conflict toward rebuilding the evidence needed for recovery—and, ultimately, to establish a reproducible approach for reconstructing disease burden in other humanitarian and conflict settings.
Publication:
Reconstructing disease burden data in armed conflict
Nature Medicine, published 14 August 2026
Research article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04576-3
Project website:
http://www.palestinediseaseburden.com/
