Partnering between U.S. and Iraqi universities: Conducting research on pediatric cancers and birth defects in Basra, Iraq, following war and sanctions

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, public health faculty and students at the University of Washington (U.W.) set out to establish a formal “sister-university” link between our school and an institution in Iraq. A relationship was eventually formed with Basra University, located in a city near Iraq's southern border with Kuwait. Our proposed session will report on several subsequent partnership activities, focusing especially on an epidemiological research project on the health effects of 15 years of war and sanctions on the children of Basra.

Iraq's national cancer registry shows a leukemia incidence rates for Iraqi children aged 0-14 have doubled between 1998 and 2001. Kidney cancers have more than doubled, and brain cancer is up 54% in the same population. In Basra, the hospitals treating children have reported the number of total childhood malignancies in 2004 totaled 200, up from 19 in 1990. In the case of leukemia, there were 15 cases at Basra hospitals in 1990, while in 2004 there were 98.

We will discuss the limitations of these data, including challenges to public health research in the setting of sanctions and war. We will also briefly mention other aspects of the sister university partnership, including attempts to send medical supplies and materials, a textbook drive, sponsoring speakers, and related activities.