International Rescue Committee

This interview brings together three practitioners working at the intersection of migration, gender, and art to examine how cultural practices become forms of resistance in contexts of displacement. Through reflections on community organising, feminist pedagogies, and the politics of fear shaping contemporary Europe, the conversation highlights the gendered dimensions of migration, the risks of institutional instrumentalisation, and the transformative potential of art for visibility and agency.

Background Preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) is used principally to identify embryos with whole chromosome aneuploidy, which are generally considered non-viable. Reports of healthy live births following transfer of embryos classified as fully aneuploid are therefore extraordinary and require rigorous verification. Methods This commentary evaluates how claims of live births from embryos diagnosed as fully aneuploid by PGT-A are generated, interpreted and reported. We examine prevailing evidentiary standards and highlight key sources of potential error, including lack of genetic identity confirmation, natural conception, laboratory or clerical error and misclassification of mosaic or segmental aneuploid embryos. Results To date, no published report has included DNA-based confirmation demonstrating that a healthy child originated from an embryo diagnosed as fully aneuploid. Failure to clearly distinguish whole chromosome aneuploidy from mosaic or segmental aneuploidy, which retain the potential to result in live birth, further complicates interpretation and risks overstating the implications of such reports. Conclusion In the absence of genetic identity confirmation, claims of live births from embryos classified as fully aneuploid cannot be considered evidentiary. As interest in this topic grows, rigorous genetic validation and standardised reporting should be required to ensure scientific credibility, support accurate patient counseling and guide responsible interpretation of these reports.

Introduction: The community’s emergency response attitude before a disaster has not yet become a concern for the community. Communities, especially those living in disaster-prone areas, tend to ignore emergency response attitudes. Objectives: This study aims to provide health education programs through home visits, simulations, and mentoring activities to increase the community’s knowledge and attitudes regarding emergency response to flood disasters. Methods: A quasi-experimental research design with a control group and a pre-test-post-test design was used. The research population was a vulnerable group (pregnant women, mothers of toddlers, the elderly, and people with disabilities) totaling 321 people. The selected sample comprised 120 participants, with 60 in each intervention and control group. The sampling method used was stratified random sampling. Results: There were significant differences in knowledge and attitudes towards disaster emergency response between the intervention and control groups (p=0.032), emergency plans (p=0.008), disaster warning systems (p=0.020), and the ability to mobilize resources (p=0.015). The community preparedness index also increased (p=0.002).Conclusions: Ongoing education programs were the first step toward making the community self-sufficient. Improving the community’s knowledge and attitude toward emergency response will reduce the negative impact of a disaster if it occurs.

This brief article introduces a new empirical assessment of the concept of mesopolitical agency to ‎examine youth engagement in peace and conflict in South Sudan. Mesopolitical agency refers to an ‎active role of managing power across multiple spheres of life. Drawing on data from a people-to-‎people peacebuilding project, the assessment focuses on the analytic power of mesopolitical agency to ‎‎(i) explore youth engagement in peace and conflict in the Unity State and, in so doing, to (ii) ‎contribute to advancing peace research and praxis. The assessment was conducted using governance ‎diaries, interviews, focus groups, and documentary data from multiple stakeholders. The findings ‎demonstrate, inter alia, that youth actively engage with local systems of power through conflict and ‎emerging roles in modest peace initiatives. The findings illustrate youth’s exercise of mesopolitical ‎agency, where the substance and extent of their participation or disaffection can significantly shape ‎and be shaped by the dynamics of peace and conflict. Overall, this article notes challenges to ‎essentialist perspectives on youth as subjects of inherent, static, or unidimensional determinable ‎positionalities vis-à-vis peace and conflict. Finally, there are concrete implications for research and ‎practice that may achieve a stronger understanding and optimization of youth’s potential role in peace.‎

Although global maternal and neonatal mortality have declined over recent decades, progress has stalled in contexts affected by conflict, fragility and displacement.(1–3) The 29 countries with United Nations humanitarian responseplans or flash appeals at the start of 2025 accounted for slightly less than one third of global births but contributed an estimated 58% of maternal deaths, 41% of stillbirths and 39% of newborn deaths. (2–4) These figures likely underestimate the burden in acute crises, where data are usually scarce.

This article focuses on urbanization in settings of fragility, addressing the research question of how new and older settlers manage natural resource use and competition in increasingly urbanizing settings of fragility. Based on two case studies of intermediary sub-Saharan African cities, we find that new and older settlers demonstrate everyday resilience in managing their shared compounded, persistent precarity. This precarity involves constant difficulty in securing water amidst three larger contextual forces: urban poverty, absence of inclusive governance and transparent and fair distribution, and a dynamic landscape of interventions by multiple actors to cope with this precarity. We further find that this resilience was somewhat efficacious in mitigating against the rise of major violence between new and older settlers, though this efficacy may well be highly contingent. We draw on these findings in arguing that resilience may not be a voluntary, sustainable, or scalable solution to increasing urban fragility. Alternative conceptual and practical approaches are finally outlined.

This review examines studies reporting the psychometric properties of the three most frequently used mental health screening tools for refugees: the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25), the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), and the Refugee Health Screener (RHS-15 and RHS-13). The review utilized the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) methodology. We searched the PubMed and PsycInfo databases for relevant studies published between 2008 and 2024. From 2505 studies screened, 13 were ultimately included in the review. Five studies analysed the HSCL-25, showing good internal consistency but problems with cross-cultural and structural validity. Three studies on the HTQ focused on measurement invariance, showing mixed results in cross-cultural and structural validity. One study revised the HTQ to match updated diagnostic criteria, but this revision has not yet been validated. Five studies established the content validity, internal consistency, and criterion validity of the RHS. Additionally, they reported similar psychometric properties for the 13-item and 15-item versions of the RHS. However, only one of these studies examined structural validity, and none examined cross-cultural validity. In conclusion, although the HSCL-25 and HTQ were seminal contributions in refugee mental health screening, more recent evidence suggests that the RHS has since emerged as the preferred instrument.

Over 60% of mothers report that their toddler resists in some way at bedtime. Although there are no differences in the prevalence of bedtime resistance between younger and older toddlers, the behavioral topography of this resistance differed, consistent with language and motoric development. BR is also associated with poorer sleep outcomes and decreased independent sleep. These findings indicate assessment and intervention strategies for bedtime resistance need to be integrated, as well as consideration of the impact of these issues on sleep outcomes and potentially family well-being. • Anecdotally, bedtime resistance is a common complaint for parents of toddlers. • Prevalence of bedtime resistance in the current sample was over 60%, and was associated with poorer sleep outcomes and decreased independent sleep. • Behavioral topography of resistance differed across age groups, with younger toddlers more likely to cry/tantrum and older toddlers more likely to engage in a breadth of resistant behaviors.