Maayan Hoffman reports [1] that Israel’s mass evacuations after October 7 disrupted more than routines and school schedules; they also disrupted medicine. A new study using anonymous electronic health record data from Maccabi Health Fund found a clear pattern in the first six months after the Hamas massacre: preventive care dropped, then began to recover once evacuees were resettled and reconnected with providers. Mental health needs, though, didn’t snap back the same way.
The study, led by Carmil Azran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and published last month while undergoing peer review, tracked adults 21 and older in evacuated communities in the south and north and compared them with non-evacuated residents and the broader Maccabi population. Researchers looked across two postwar windows—November 1, 2023, to April 30, 2024, and May 1, 2024, to October 30, 2024—matched against comparable prewar periods.
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Screening rates tell the first half of the story. Diabetes and hypertension checks dipped early. Southern evacuees rebounded strongly, returning to roughly prewar levels by the second six-month period. Northern evacuees recovered less: annual diabetes screening, for example, fell from 60.8% prewar to 54.3% afterward. Cancer screening looked worse. Colorectal screening among northern evacuees dropped from 27.4% to 18.3%. Breast cancer screening fell steeply in both regions—44.1% to 28.9% in the south, and 42.0% to 22.6% in the north—even as the broader Maccabi population rose from 29.3% to 34.1%. Azran described the early period as survival mode, followed by a coordinated push by health funds to bring patients back in.
Then comes the second half: trauma. Antidepressant and anti-anxiety use among southern evacuees rose 90% year over year, compared with 8% for other southern residents. Sleep medication purchases climbed 40% for southern evacuees. Northern increases were far smaller, reflecting a different exposure profile. The study found no major one-year change in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer incidence, but outside experts warn that chronic effects can surface later.
For the numbers, the contrasts between north and south, and what health officials think this means for the next emergency, read Hoffman’s full report [1].