Diana Rayes

Diana Rayes is a global mental health research consultant and Research Fellow with the Lancet Commission on Syria. After living and working in humanitarian and host country contexts spanning the Middle East and Europe, Diana became interested in examining the impact of uncertainty on refugee mental health and well-being. Her research interests are in refugee trauma and faith-sensitive approaches to mental health service provision and humanitarian programming. She recently returned from Germany, where she completed a Fulbright Research Fellowship, studying the various methods of cultural and religious coping among Arabic-speaking refugees living in Berlin, and how these factors impact their integration into European society. In the past, she has consulted for the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (WHO EMRO), Action Contre Le Faim, the Syria Public Health Network, and coordinated humanitarian health projects for the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, the International Rescue Committee, and the Syrian American Medical Society. Her work has been published in The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, PLOS Medicine, and Middle East Topics & Arguments. Diana is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Arizona State University. Twitter: @diana_r7

Articles by: Diana Rayes

Part 1: Syrians in Neighboring Host Countries

Over 5.6 million Syrians have been forcibly displaced from Syria to neighboring countries in the Middle Eastern region. This has resulted in a major regional and international humanitarian emergency affecting the lives...

No Funding and No Policy: Lebanon’s Refugee Population amid COVID-19 and an Economic Crisis

Chronic food insecurity, unemployment, rampant discrimination, and uncertainty about the future, exacerbated by Lebanon’s deteriorating economic and financial situation, have added significant stress on Lebanon’s refugee population and the humanitarian agencies and...

COVID-19 in Syria: Short- and Long-Term Implications for a Country in Crisis

Relative to other countries in the region, Syria is exceptionally unprepared to manage the potential of a COVID-19 outbreak. Even before the beginning of the conflict in 2011, Syria’s healthcare infrastructure, including...