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Rutgers researchers, aided by international collaborators, have tracked the devastation war has made on Ukraine’s hospital system.

Hundreds of hospitals in Ukraine have been forced to close or operate at a reduced capacity since Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European country in February 2022. Damage, destruction and supply shortages caused by the war have impaired the nation’s hospital system and taken a serious toll on human health.

In a study published in JAMA, Rutgers researchers and collaborators from the United States, Pakistan and Ukraine collected and compared data on hospital services provided both during the period preceding the current conflict (before Feb. 23, 2022) and during the war (Feb. 23, 2022 through May 30, 2023). Before the invasion, there were about 720 hospitals in Ukraine. By April 2023, 450 hospitals were still operating. Of these 450 hospitals, 74 hospitals from 12 of Ukraine’s 24 oblasts (provinces) not under Russian occupation participated in the study.

The study’s coauthors from Rutgers include Emily S. Barrett and Nancy Fiedler of the School of Public Health and Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Miraj Ahmad of the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience in the School of Arts and Sciences.

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