Interrogating the role of sociopolitical determinants of health in Palestine: A qualitative study with key informants

Article by Yara M. Asi, David Mills, Nicole B. Alkhouri, Rasha Kaloti, Nadine Bahour, Osama Tanous, Bram Wispelwey, and Weeam Hammoudeh, published as an open-access piece in Global Public Health, examining the sociopolitical determinants of health in Palestine through a qualitative study with key informants. The study investigates how political structures, including occupation, territorial fragmentation, and settler colonialism, shape health outcomes for Palestinians, moving beyond biomedical and behavioral frameworks to center political economy and governance as primary drivers of health disparities. The findings argue that Palestinian health cannot be meaningfully studied without engaging the political architecture of Israeli control as a fundamental determinant of population health. Recommended for public health researchers and students seeking a qualitative approach to understanding political determinants of Palestinian health, providing empirical grounding for the argument that occupation functions as a primary social determinant and contextualizing individual health outcomes within broader structural conditions.