What we do know (and could know) about estimating population sizes of internally displaced people

Ruwan Ratnayake; Nada Abdelmagid; Claire Dooley

doi:10.1016/j.jmh.2022.100120

What we do know (and could know) about estimating population sizes of internally displaced people

J Migr Health. 2022 May 29:6:100120. doi: 10.1016/j.jmh.2022.100120. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Ruwan Ratnayake^{1

2

3}, Nada Abdelmagid^{1

2}, Claire Dooley^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom.
² Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
³ Centre for the Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Population Health, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

The estimation of population denominators of internally displaced people (IDP) and other crisis-affected populations is a foundational step that facilitates all humanitarian assistance. However, the humanitarian system remains somewhat tolerant of irregular and inaccurate estimates of population size and composition, particularly of IDPs. In this commentary, we review how humanitarian organizations currently approach the estimation of IDP populations, and how field approaches and analytical methodologies can be improved and integrated.

Keywords: Humanitarian assistance; Internal displacement; Population.