The emerging field of conflict epidemiology offers a more accurate method to measure deaths caused during violent conflicts or wars that can generate more reliable numbers than before to guide decision-makers.

In February 2001 the Carter Center

Carter Center

The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering...

 and the United States Institute of Peace

United States Institute of Peace

The United States Institute of Peace was created by Congress as a non-partisan, federal institution that works to prevent or end violent conflict around the world...

 (USIP), in collaboration with CARE (relief)

CARE (relief)

CARE is a broad-spectrum secular relief, humanitarian, and development non-governmental organization fighting global poverty. It is non-political, non-sectarian and operates annually in more than 70 countries across the globe.One of the organization’s primary focuses in its fight to eradicate...

, Emory University

Emory University

Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta...

 (CDC), sponsored a meeting on "Violence and Health". The goals of the meeting were to determine the impact of violent conflict on public health

Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...

 and to advise public health training programs on means to enhance the work of public health professionals in working in violent conflicts.

Compiling or estimating the numbers of deaths caused during wars and other violent conflicts is a controversial subject. Historians often put forward many different estimates of the numbers killed during historic conflicts. What conflict epidemiology offers is a better methodology to more accurately estimate actual mortality rates during existing wars and conflict.

Iraq Conflict 2003

The subject of conflict epidemiology made headline news after a report of a survey was conducted by an American and Iraqi team of public health researchers. Data were collected by local Iraqi doctors and analysed by the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

There is an extensive Wikipedia entry on this report here: Lancet surveys of casualties of the Iraq War

Further reading

Burnham G, Lafta R, Doocy S, Roberts L., Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey. Lancet 2006;368:1421-8. http://web.mit.edu/cis/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf

Giles, James, Risking life and limb to count the war dead. New Scientist, no 2615, 1 August 2007.

McDonnell SM, Bolton P, Sunderland N, Bellows B, White M, Noji E., The Role of the Applied Epidemiologist in Armed Conflict.
Emerging Themes Epidemiol 2004, vol 1 no 4. http://www.ete-online.com/content/1/1/4 & http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=544942

Thieren, Michel, Health and foreign policy in question: the case of humanitarian action. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol 85, no 3. http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862007000300016&lng=&nrm=iso