Health system and community responses to COVID-19: a comparative study focused on Palestinian refugees in Gaza and Lebanon

This study adopts a realist case-study and mixed-method design to appraise the effectiveness, equity, acceptability and scalability of strategies put in place by health systems in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic, to sustain routine service delivery and mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. The study will produce timely evidence, in usable formats such as summaries, infographics, and survey analysis reports, to inform ongoing decision-making of UNRWA and other humanitarian actors. Longer-term outcomes include improved understanding of the resilience of health systems responding to the needs of protractedly displaced populations, and on the effective strategies and underlying capacities required for health systems to respond.