Executive Summary
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. This action marked a sharp escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war which began in 2014. The invasion has produced Europe’s largest movement of people, internally from east to west in the country, and externally to neighboring countries. There are an estimated 15.7 million people affected by the war in Ukraine, of which 12.1 million are considered in need of humanitarian health care.
Active conflict has affected the functionality of the health system and produce acute shortages of supplies and medicines. Additionally, war activities limit free mobilization of populations. All of this, resulting in an overall limitation to access of health services and medicines. Conversely, there is also an increase of internal and external displacement of people due to war-related activities. The abrupt displacement of people may increase the risk of disease, due to closer and more intense social mixing, poor quality shelter and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) conditions.
In May 2022, taking into consideration the Health Cluster requests, Corus International prepared a Detailed Implementation Plan (DIP) in the process of conducting a LQAS health needs assessment, which is used to assess indicators related to its Program interventions in Ukraine. This LQAS household survey has been taken as the baseline for Corus International Health Program in the following 5 locations where Corus International supports existing sanatoriums managed by the Federation of Trade Professional Unions (FPU):
The LQAS survey used a modified WHO’s data collection tool, which allowed to measure Corus Health Program indicators. The data was collected with smart phones and tablets equipped with Kobo Collect software, which was pretested in the field, and adjusted to ensure accuracy, before training the data collection teams on its use. A server was set up to securely host all electronic data collected from the survey, and data were monitored daily for errors and quality. The total random sample size for the LQAS assessment was 475 respondents. Data was collected by each interviewer through in-depth structured interviews of the respondents. Data collection teams combined smart phone/tablet and paper-based questionnaire methods for interviewing. Data collection took place from 27th to 31st May 2022. Corus analyzed all data sets using STATA V.12 and Excel.
In the geographical areas included in the survey, almost 3 out 10 participants were internally displaced persons (IDPs); most of them living in collective premises with private sleeping quarters but sharing dining facilities. Rest of participants lived in their own apartment or house. Morshyn (West) was the catchment area with the highest proportion of IDP (45.3%) followed by Solnechnoe Zakaparttie and Myrhorod (33.7% and 24.2% respectively), also located in the western part of the ocuntry. Seven out of 10 households included between 2 and 4 persons, with 5 out of ten headed by a woman (53.3%), followed by households headed by a person older than 60 years of age (32.8%). The highest proportion of households headed by female and/or a person older than 60 years of age was found in Karpaty catchment area (62.1% and 36.8%, respectively), followed by Khmilnyk (central area) catchment area (52.6% and 34.7%, respectively).
The proportion of households with water and sanitation problems in the geographical areas included showed and average of 6.3%, predominantly related to water access. The catchment area with the highest need was Solnechnoe Zakarpattie (12.6%), followed by Khmilnyk (9.5%).