This paper aims at understanding the dynamics of sectarian violence in the city of Beirut, by looking at the early phase of violence in the Lebanese civil war (1975–90), and the process of dividing Beirut into various sectarian enclaves controlled by the warring militias. The paper aims to show the way in which political actors used sectarian violence as a mechanism of social, political, and te...

OBJECTIVE This study was conducted to assess the effects of involuntary and persistent noise exposure on health and hearing among Lebanese adults in Beirut, Lebanon, where people are exposed to noise from construction sites, power generators, honking cars, and motorcycles. METHODS Using a descriptive and exploratory design with mixed methods, participants were surveyed, interviewed, and teste...

This paper examined how musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) of female homemakers were studied in the literature. It also presented preliminary findings from field observations of housework and fulltime homemakers in urban settings. PubMed, Ergonomics Abstracts, Sociofile, and PsycINFO databases were used in the literature search. The review focused on comparing demands of housework and paid work. ...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to conduct an audit of point-of-sale (POS) tobacco advertising and assess compliance with an advertising ban in a large district of Beirut, Lebanon. METHODS The audit was conducted 3 months following the ban on tobacco advertising. Trained students observed all tobacco retail outlets (n = 100) and entered data into a web-based form using iPad(®) tech...

Symptoms of gastroenteritis compatible with a food-borne outbreak started appearing among employees at the central headquarters of a “Bank” located in Beirut, Lebanon, on the evening of Monday 17 May 2004. Earlier on that day, many employees had had lunch at the bank cafeteria. All of those with signs and symptoms had eaten the main dish of chicken noodles au gratin served at the cafeteria on t...

A vedis Donabedian was born in Beirut, Lebanon on 7 January 1919. As a child he moved to a small town near Jerusalem in Palestine (now Israel) after his family fled the Armenian holocaust. However, in Palestine he experienced the social turmoil of that region. Although a Christian, he had Jewish, Arab, and Christian friends as he was growing up in Palestine. At the interpersonal level he was ab...