The Effects of Invisible Support in Refugee Care for Intergenerational Health

Prenatal stress has profound, long-term consequences for unborn children, increasing their risk of mental health issues and perpetuating intergenerational health disparities. Despite their importance, informal supportive actions—referred to as invisible care—are often excluded from Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) frameworks, leaving their impact unrecognized and underfunded. This research seeks to document and validate these unacknowledged practices, offering practical insights to improve maternal and child health outcomes while addressing structural gaps in humanitarian aid frameworks.

Focusing on refugee reception centers in Europe, the study examines how invisible care, delivered by staff and volunteers, reduces stress in pregnant women and improves health outcomes for their children. By bridging anthropology, public health, and policy analysis, the project highlights gaps in existing M&E systems and offers recommendations to integrate these practices into formal evaluations. In collaboration with “Because We Carry”, AMURTEL and other humanitarian organizations, the research seeks to enhance maternal and child health, ensure the value of invisible care is recognized, and improve funding opportunities for organizations delivering these critical interventions.

Meet the team

352093040_643166847851258_1512039683480885050_n

Dr. Roanne van Voorst

Futures Anthropologist and President of the Dutch Future Society; expert in humanitarian aid and crisis settings, University of Amsterdam.

20241029_fotomariekedelorijn_6603d_tessa-vrijgemaakt_fx_zw-1-2048x1366

Prof. Tessa Rosenboom

Professor of Early Development and Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Amsterdam; Future Generations Commissioner, Amsterdam UMC.

marjette koot

Dr. Marjette Koot

General Practitioner and Research Associate in Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC; specialist in refugee health and intergenerational stress.

917acc_f4499c351fb54afab678781bb6703e88~mv2_d_1365_2048_s_2.jpg

Dr. Loes Loning

Postdoc (UvA).

Health-AI

Together with my team of PhDs and Postdocs, I am currently undertaking a multi-sited ethnography of the evolving revolution in global health systems: AI (Artificial Intelligence)-informed healthcare. As health data is increasingly viewed as countries’ ‘future oil’, concerns about ‘algorithmic ethics’ are emerging among scholars and the public. Previous research has shown that datasets in AI (re)produce social biases, discriminate and limit personal autonomy. Nevertheless, such literature has mainly focused on AI design and institutional frameworks, examining the subject via legal, technocratic and philosophical perspectives, while disregarding the socio-cultural context in which AI systems operate, especially in organizations where human agents collaborate with Algorithms. This limitation is problematic because frameworks for ‘ethical AI’ currently regard human oversight as crucial, assuming that humans will correct or resist AI when needed. However, empirical evidence for this assumption is scarce. Little is known about when and why people intervene or resist AI. Previous research is confined to single, primarily Western studies, which precludes generalisation of findings. Our research is innovative on four fronts: 

1. To empirically analyze decisive moments in which data-analysts follow or deviate AI – moments that are deeply impacting national health policies and individual human lives.
2. To do research in six national settings with various governmental frameworks and in different organizational contexts, enabling us to contrast findings, eventually leading to a theory on the contextual and organizational factors underlying ethical AI.
3. To use innovative anthropological methods of future-scenarioing, which will enrich the anthropological discipline by developing and finetuning future-focused research. For this methodology we collaborate with data-scientists, programmers, artists, AI experts, social scientists and physicians.
4. To connect our anthropological insights with the expertise of AI-developers, and partners with relevant health decision-makers and policy-institutions, allowing to both analyze and contribute to fair AI.

Meet the team

  • Dr. Roanne van Voorst, principal investogator and supervisor
  • Prof. Jeanette Pols, supervisor
  • Guo Zudong, postdoctoral researcher
  • Albina Abzalova, Phd Researcher
  • Ismail Umar, PhD Researcher
  • Rod Mena, ethical advisor
  • Michiel Baas, ethical advisor
 

Selection of public events & research reports

Please note that this list is incomplete and often behind reality. We work according to the principles of deep, or socalled slow academia, meaning that we prioritize fieldwork, reading and writing over digital updates. A more updated list of academic publications and activities can be found here.

Scroll to Top