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A cross-border comparison of care strategies that women refugees and asylum seekers employ for survival during converging public health crises in Ireland and Northern Ireland

In recent years, public health crises have increased in frequency with each year bringing new emergencies. Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent worldwide lockdowns brought new levels of public awareness to the threat of various hazards. Although the scale of this emergency was unprecedented, it was just one of many emergencies impacting large populations and multiple nations in recent years (e.g. infectious diseases like Avian Influenza or Mpox; Syrian and Ukrainian refugee crises; disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes). Recent experience demonstrates the extensive social and economic damage that public health crises can cause. To better prepare for and respond to future emergencies, research is needed to identify how real people experience crisis. This project will achieve that by researching one of the most vulnerable populations in society, women refugees and asylum seekers. Crises do not occur in isolation, but often overlap with other emergencies. Research is needed into complex crisis situations so that future policies have the best chance of preparing societies for effective and comprehensive responses. This project 1. Excellence will address that need by examining how the COVID-19 pandemic and Ukrainian refugee crisis overlapped. Research will take place in Belfast (Northern Ireland), Dundalk (on the border) and Dublin (Republic of Ireland). By researching across the island’s international border, this project will benefit island-wide cohesion by identifying ways to jointly respond to crises in the future. I will take an in-depth approach to my research, collecting data over eighteen on different life experiences of women refugees during this time. I will consider how individual women and the organisations that support them cope with crisis by caring about and for one another. This approach will allow me to recommend ways for local, national and international governments and organisations to better support vulnerable populations in future crises.