Evidence map›Paper›PMID 42058092›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in public health2026

Structural determinants of depressive symptoms among refugees and host communities in South Sudan: evidence from explainable machine learning.

Hyojin Im, Ashwag Abdulrahim

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Hyojin ImSchool of Social Work, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States.
Ashwag AbdulrahimDepartment of Health Administration, College of Health Professions, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: Depressive symptoms in displacement settings are often framed as consequences of refugee status, which can obscure the shared structural conditions emphasized in the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) framework that shape mental health for refugees and host communities and limit the identification of practical intervention targets. This study examines the relative contribution of health, socioeconomic, protection, and contextual factors to depressive symptom severity among adults living in displacement-affected settings in South Sudan. Methods: We analyzed nationally representative data from 3,055 adults (2,066 refugees, mean displacement duration 11.15 years; 989 host community members) from the 2023 Forced Displacement Survey. Depressive symptom severity was measured using the PHQ-9. We compared Elastic Net regression, Random Forests, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) using 10 × 5 nested cross-validation. The best-performing model was interpreted using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to estimate the marginal contribution of each predictor in PHQ units. Results: Mean depressive symptom severity was low to moderate overall ( Conclusion: Depressive symptoms in South Sudan appear to be structured primarily by health, material hardship, and protection-related gradients rather than refugee status

Indexed as

DepressionMachine LearningRefugeesAdolescentAdultBoosting Machine Learning AlgorithmsFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedRandom ForestSocial Determinants of HealthSocioeconomic FactorsSouth SudanYoung Adultdepressive symptomsexplainable machine learningforced displacementhumanitarian settingsrefugees and host communitiesSHAP (SHapley Additive Explanations)South Sudanstructural determinants of mental health

Identifiers

PMID42058092
PMCPMC13120975

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.