AUB study to document Ras Beirut demographics

BEIRUT: Ras Beirut is one of the capital’s most diverse and prosperous regions, home to thousands of students, hundreds of businesses and countless places of worship. As thriving as the area seems, surprisingly little is known about the people who live on Beirut’s headland, according to researchers at one of Lebanon’s largest universities. 

Professors at the American University of Beirut (AUB) have launched a pioneering study seeking to address Ras Beirut’s dearth of demographic data by asking residents to speak candidly on their health and financial situations. 

The Center for Research on Population Health of the Faculty of Health Sciences, in conjunction with the university’s community outreach program, Neighborhood Initiative, is conducting an ongoing survey of residents, randomly selected from Beirut’s Hamra, Manara, Qoreitem and Ain al-Tineh districts in a bid to understand more about how money and happiness effect people’s health. 

“Almost nothing is known about the situation of people who live in Ras Beirut,” said Cynthia Myntti, project leader of the Neighborhood Initiative. “We know much more about the health of people living in poor districts of the city.” 

“Our study will take people’s subjective definition of health and well-being into account,” Myntti said. “We are taking this broad approach, rather than the usual one which focuses only on individual behavior.” 

Afamia Kaddour, research associate at AUB’s Center for Research on Population and Health, said the area’s recent demographic shift was one of the most significant in recent times. 

“Ras Beirut is changing a lot, but we don’t have anything on this,” she said. 

Kaddour described Ras Beirut as having undergone a “graying,” with younger residents struggling to match asking prices on rents inflated by the arrival of expats and wealthy Lebanese seeking property close to the sea. “There used to be some form of community in Ras Beirut, now it’s just a neighborhood,” she said. 

“Our main question is to understand the effects of inequality and health, asking about many issues which are not traditionally related to health in the minds of many people.” 

The area’s gentrification is a phenomenon about which Lebanese academics know little. Kaddour said that the study will seek to quantify the human effects of pockets of Ras Beirut becoming prohibitively expensive to live in. 

“Many people are being driven out [of Ras Beirut], especially middle class and poor people, and this will be thought about.” 

The survey will seek to gain comprehensive insight into income disparity across Ras Beirut. The area is home to some of Beirut’s most expensive, seafront real-estate, but it is estimated many residents live off meager incomes. 

Logistical issues will also be addressed by the survey, such as Ras Beirut’s traffic problem. 

The survey team, which started questioning last month, is tasked with getting answers out of 2,400 individuals in the Ras Beirut area. Kaddour estimates that 70 percent of people questioned will return sufficiently random data to commence the analytical process. 

But she admitted that getting people to speak honestly and candidly was proving the biggest obstacle to gathering usable data. 

“We are asking [for] a lot of important information; we need to know marital statuses and income figures. We are asking the opinions of people and some people don’t want to recount these opinions,” said Kaddour. “It is the choice of people not to be interviewed and this is something that we respect.” 

Researchers at AUB have asked for greater participation in the survey in order to get the most from compiled data. 

“If people refuse to speak to us we will not be able to draw the complete picture on the neighborhood,” said Kaddour.