Ukraine refugee crisis: evolving needs and challenges

This case report examines the initial experience of Poland in responding to the refugee crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. In the first 2 months of the crisis, more than 3 million Ukrainian refugees fled to Poland. The large influx of refugees rapidly overwhelmed local services and led to a complex humani-tarian emergency. The initial priorities were to address basic human needs, such as shelter, infectious disease concerns and healthcare access, but evolved to include mental health, non-communicable dis-eases and protection needs. This necessitated a 'whole of society' response involving multiple agencies and civil society. Emerging lessons learned include the need for ongoing needs assessments, robust disease monitoring and surveillance, as well as flexible multisectoral responses that are culturally sen-sitive. Finally, Poland's efforts to integrate refugees may help mitigate some of the adverse consequences of the conflict-related migration.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Society for Public Health. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).