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# Dr. Ruth Gibson: Stanford University - Research on Geopolitics and Global Health

## Sitemaps
[XML Sitemap](https://drruthgibson.com/sitemap_index.xml): Includes all crawlable and indexable pages.

## Posts

## Pages
- [Economic Sanctions and Global Health](https://drruthgibson.com/economic-sanctions-global-health/): Research on how economic sanctions reshape health systems, increase mortality, and why humanitarian safeguards must be grounded in evidence. By Dr. Ruth Gibson, Stanford University.
- [Press Kit](https://drruthgibson.com/press/)
- [Media and Talks](https://drruthgibson.com/talks/)
- [Publications](https://drruthgibson.com/publications/)
- [Projects](https://drruthgibson.com/projects/)
- [Dr. Ruth Gibson Stanford](https://drruthgibson.com/)
- [Contact](https://drruthgibson.com/contact/): If you do not hear back from me within one business day, you can contact the Center for Innovation in Global Health's Director of Communications, Jamie Hansen, at jmhansen@stanford.edu
- [CV](https://drruthgibson.com/cv/): Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation

## Publications
- [Mistaken Sanctions Relief: How U.S. General License 134A Benefits Russian Energy Companies Implicated in War Crimes Against Ukrainian Children](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/mistaken-sanctions-relief-how-u-s-general-license-134a-benefits-russian-energy-companies-implicated-in-war-crimes-against-ukrainian-children/): This companion report to the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab provides an overview of U.S. General License 134A and the current state of U.S., EU, and UK sanctions targeting Gazprom, Rosneft, their subsidiaries, trade unions, and corporate leadership. Yale HRL has established with high confidence that Gazprom and Rosneft, together with their subsidiaries and trade unions, facilitated the transportation and re-education of at least 2,158 Ukrainian children between February 2022 and March 2025. The temporary 30-day sanctions relief provided by General License 134A will financially benefit these two companies alleged to be implicated in war crimes. This general license should not be extended by OFAC after it expires on April 11, 2026.
- [Health safeguards under the UN’s reimposition of sanctions on Iran](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/health-safeguards-under-the-uns-reimposition-of-sanctions-on-iran/): On Sept 28, 2025, the UN Security Council snapback under Resolution 2231 reinstated multilateral sanctions on Iran related to insufficient compliance in international oversight of its nuclear programme. This Correspondence does not take a position on the UN Security Council decision to reimpose multilateral sanctions. We focus on the implications of these geopolitical decisions for Iran's population, against the backdrop of devastating impacts on at-risk populations under previous sanctions.
- [Geopolitical coercion : implications for global health](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/geopolitical-coercion-implications-for-global-health/): The world order is going through a shift from multilateral to unilateral responses to international conflicts. The United Nations Security Council has provisions for resolving conflicts by way of joint efforts by member nations, but increasingly superpowers are taking action alone. The result is a global order with less international governance and minimal oversight of the humanitarian outcomes on local populations.
- [The Role of Health Researchers in Documenting HealthSuffering and Crimes against Humanity Resulting from 2018US Sanctions against Iran](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/the-role-of-health-researchers-in-documenting-healthsuffering-and-crimes-against-humanity-resulting-from-2018us-sanctions-against-iran/): Sanctions have been prominent in the history of Iran-US political relations beginning with Iran’s 1979Islamic Revolution. The US response to the hostage crisis (1979-1981) was to impose sanctions freezingall Iranian assets held in the US. The 1980s and 1990s were marked by US sanctions on Iranian oilresources and general trade. In 1996 the US passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act to penalize Iran forweapons of mass destruction as the rationale for these sanctions, despite a lack of proof that Iran wasdeveloping nuclear-related technology. These sanctions targeted the oil industry. In 2006 the USmounted a financial embargo against Iran, banning all business transactions between the two countries,citing Iran’s support of terrorist organizations as the rationale for these measures. In 2010 theComprehensive Iran Sanctions were implemented alongside various executive orders by former USpresident Barack Obama. In addition, the United Nations Security Council imposed multilateralsanctions in 2006 and 2011, referring to Iran’s “undeclared nuclear activity” as the international securitythreat sparking these sanctions (Marossi & Bassett, 2015). Over the last four decades health serviceproviders and researchers have continued to work in Iran despite sanctions causing challengingconditions, lack of medicine, and declining public health indicators (Gorgi, 2014; Velayati, Jamati, &Hashemian, 2015; Gorgi, 2013). At each of these time periods, health researchers have published articlescalling for the end of sanctions and the exemption of health supplies and medicines from financialembargos. But little has changed. This article proposes an approach for health services researchers inmounting a response to sanctions: the use of health data, published as close to sanction implementation aspossible when health indicators start to decline, to document the impacts of sanctions on localpopulations. This quantitative health research data can be used to effect change through internationallaw.
- [Sanctions and humanitarian outcomes: four decades of academic scholarship](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/sanctions-and-humanitarian-outcomes-four-decades-of-academic-scholarship/)
- [Managing ethical dilemmas in community-based participatory research with vulnerable populations](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/managing-ethical-dilemmas-in-community-based-participatory-research/): This article describes two ethical dilemmas encountered by our research team during a project working with undocumented immigrants in Toronto, Canada. This article aims to be transparent about the problems the research team faced, the processes by which we sought to understand these problems, how solutions were found, and how the ethical dilemmas were resolved. Undocumented immigrants are a vulnerable community of individuals residing in a country without legal citizenship, immigration, or refugee status.
- [Prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review and analysis](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/prevalence-of-rheumatoid-arthritis-in-low-and-middle-income-countries/): Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder that affects the small joints of the body. It is one of the leading causes of chronic morbidity in high-income countries, but little is known about the burden of this disease in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
- [Global age-sex-specific mortality, life expectancy, and population estimates in 204 countries](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/global-age-sex-specific-mortality-life-expectancy-and-population-estimates-in-204-countries/): Comprehensive, comparable, and timely estimates of demographic metrics—including life expectancy and age-specific mortality—are essential for evaluating, understanding, and addressing trends in population health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of timely and all-cause mortality estimates for being able to respond to changing trends in health outcomes, showing a strong need for demographic analysis tools that can produce all-cause mortality estimates more rapidly with more readily available all-age vital registration (VR) data. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is an ongoing research effort that quantifies human health by estimating a range of epidemiological quantities of interest across time, age, sex, location, cause, and risk. This study—part of the latest GBD release, GBD 2023—aims to provide new and updated estimates of all-cause mortality and life expectancy for 1950 to 2023 using a novel statistical model that accounts for complex correlation structures in demographic data across age and time.
- [The impact of aid sanctions on maternal and child mortality, 1990–2019: a panel analysis](https://drruthgibson.com/publication/the-impact-of-aid-sanctions-on-maternal-and-child-mortality-1990-2019-a-panel-analysis/): Background: Aid sanctions are a type of financial punishment imposed on a country by other countries or international organisations in response to a political coup, armed conflict, or human rights abuses. Humanitarian catastrophes in Burkina Faso, Sudan, and Myanmar have brought aid sanctions to the centre of the foreign affairs strategy debate because of their inadvertent negative effects on human health. Our analysis investigates the effects of aid sanctions from 1990 to 2019 on maternal and child mortality. These questions are particularly relevant in the context of the abrupt shift in US foreign aid policy in 2025, leading to aid prohibitions that might resemble aid sanctions in their effects.

## Projects
- [Sanctions to Punish Russia’s Forcible Transfer of Ukrainian Children](https://drruthgibson.com/project/sanctions-to-punish-russias-forcible-transfer-of-ukrainian-children/): International Working Group on Russian Sanctions 
- [Lancet Series on Foreign Engagement and Global Health](https://drruthgibson.com/project/lancet-series-on-foreign-engagement-and-global-health/): Co-led with Professor Gary Darmstadt • Stanford University

## Talks
- [Stanford CIGH: Understanding Sanctions Through a Health Lens](https://drruthgibson.com/talk/stanford-cigh-understanding-sanctions-through-a-health-lens/): Presentation at the Center for Innovation in Global Health exploring the methodology behind measuring health impacts of economic sanctions and implications for policy design.
- [World Class Podcast: Sanctions and Global Health Security](https://drruthgibson.com/talk/world-class-podcast-sanctions-and-global-health-security/): In-depth discussion with Ambassador Michael McFaul about economic sanctions, humanitarian impacts, and policy alternatives for addressing geopolitical conflicts while protecting civilian populations.
- [Foreign Aid Sanctions Set Back Decades of Progress](https://drruthgibson.com/talk/foreign-aid-sanctions-set-back-decades-of-progress/): Stanford Health Policy video exploring how foreign aid sanctions have reversed decades of health progress in developing nations, with implications for current policy debates.
- [The Impact of Aid Sanctions on Maternal-Child Mortality](https://drruthgibson.com/talk/the-impact-of-aid-sanctions-on-maternal-child-mortality/): Presentation at the 2025 Global Health Research Convening examining the relationship between foreign aid sanctions and maternal-child mortality outcomes across developing nations.