This three-week online short course examines the unique challenges of addressing NCDs—such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer—in contexts of conflict, displacement, and protracted crises. Through a blend of self-paced learning, real-world case studies, and live expert sessions, participants will engage with current debates, policies, and practices aimed at ensuring continuity of care and sustainability of services. The course culminates in a forward-looking discussion on integration and localisation of NCD services in fragile health systems.
Teaching approaches
The course is delivered online, with asynchronous content accessible through LSTM virtual learning platform and 3 synchronous sessions live on MS Teams.
- Asynchronous content (6 hours of self-study per week): Accessible via LSTM virtual learning platform, including curated readings, YouTube videos, case study materials, and weekly reflection/discussion forums.
- Synchronous sessions: Including presentations, expert panels, and groupwork. Delivered live on Thursday 5th, 12th, 19th of March 2026, 1pm-3pm GMT.
Course Content and Weekly Themes
Week 1: Characterising NCDs in Humanitarian Crises and Emergencies
Key Themes:
- Defining NCDs and chronic care needs in emergencies
- Crisis typologies and their impact on NCD services
- Data gaps, invisibility, and the under-prioritisation of NCDs
- Differences between acute and chronic health responses
Week 2: Complexity of Addressing NCDs in Emergencies and Protracted Crises
Key Themes:
- Structural, political, and financial barriers to care
- Role of health systems fragmentation and limitation of humanitarianism
- Regional and global governance and accountability gaps
- Local determinants (e.g. displacement, stigma, access inequities)
Week 3: Towards Integration – Sustainable and Responsive NCD Care
Key Themes:
- Integrating NCDs into emergency preparedness and response plans
- Effective Interventions and Models for task shifting, mHealth, and decentralised delivery, etc.
- Bridging humanitarian and development approaches
- Localisation and sustainable health system strengthening
Course tutors
Dr Ibrahim R. Bou-Orm
Ibrahim joined Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) as a Senior Lecturer in Global Health and Social Sciences in 2024. He has extensive experience in designing and implementing complex health systems and policy studies in fragile and conflict-affected settings. His work includes the use of tools like applied political economy analysis, systems dynamics methods, surveys, and mixed methods to analyse health systems delivering care for vulnerable and displaced populations in crises and emergencies. Ibrahim has actively contributed to international conferences and participated in key expert consultation meetings, such the WHO EMRO consultation meeting on health systems recovery from emergencies (2023). He also supported EMRO in developing the principles and priorities for health system recovery in the occupied Palestinian territory (2024).
Professor Fouad Fouad
Fouad is a Social Sciences and Global Health Professor at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, who joined the school in 2024. He has extensive research on migration and health, focusing on multidisciplinary approaches to forced displacement, health systems in humanitarian settings, and the political economy of health in protracted crises.
Fouad served as the Chair of the IDRC- Forced Displacement Program in the Middle East, and the Co-Director of the Refugee Health Program at the Global Health Institute. In addition, he was a Research Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, where he also held a position as an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences.
He was a commissioner in the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health (2018) and is currently a commissioner in the Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict, and Forced Migration.