# Genital Infection Symptoms Among Syrian Refugee Women in Lebanon: A Mixed-Methods Study to Adapt, Pilot Test, and Preliminarily Evaluate an Evidence-Based Intervention

> **NIH NIH K01** · WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV · 2024 · $185,220

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Candidate. Dr. Sasha Fahme is an Internal Medicine-trained physician-scientist who has spent the past four
years conducting refugee health research in Lebanon. She has first-hand experience treating sexually
transmitted infections (STIs) and conducting sexual and reproductive health (SRH) studies of Syrian refugee
women. She has trained a Lebanese research team and Syrian peer educators to conduct SRH research and
has established capacity for STI testing. Her preliminary data suggest that Syrian refugee women are eager to
learn about SRH from peers and to engage in longitudinal SRH care, with 89% 1-year retention. She seeks to
adapt and pilot-test an evidence-based intervention (EBI) to address barriers to SRH care in this population.
Career Goals. Dr. Fahme's goals are:
1. To gain expertise in mixed-methods health sciences research.
2. To strengthen experience in the conduct of humanitarian health research.
3. To foster implementation science skills to develop and evaluate evidence-based interventions.
4. To develop skills in dissemination to translate research findings into practice.
5. To build leadership skills and successfully compete for R01 research grants.
Career Development. Dr. Fahme will achieve her goals through workshops, virtual courses, and one-on-one
mentored training from Dr. Fitzgerald (career mentorship, humanitarian health, STI epidemiology) Dr. DeJong
(mixed-methods, humanitarian health), Dr. Downs (implementation science), and Dr. Abu-Raddad (STI
epidemiology, dissemination). She will disseminate contextualized STI guidelines based on her findings, and
present her research at international conferences. She will participate in grant-writing workshops and submit
an R01 proposal of a hybrid type I cluster-randomized trial to improve Syrian refugee women's SRH in Year 5.
Environment. The proposed research and training will take place at Weill Cornell Medical College (New York,
USA) and at the American University of Beirut (Beirut, Lebanon), a global leader in refugee health research.
Research. Syrian refugee women in Lebanon are among the world's largest and most vulnerable displaced
populations, with a high burden of genital infection symptoms. The etiologies of these symptoms are not known
and access to treatment is limited by numerous barriers that are most acute among rural women. Dr. Fahme
will recruit 204 symptomatic, rural Syrian refugee women to participate in a longitudinal mixed-methods study.
She hypothesizes that >30% will experience recurrent genital infections, and that guidelines fail to address
drivers of recurrence, which she will explore through in-depth interviews. She will use these data, the ADAPT-
ITT model, and the Implementation Outcomes Framework to adapt and evaluate an EBI to address genital
infection symptoms in a single-group pilot feasibility study among 30 Syrian refugee women.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10929547
- **Project number:** 5K01TW012435-02
- **Recipient organization:** WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV
- **Principal Investigator:** Sasha Fahme
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $185,220
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-16 → 2028-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10929547

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10929547, Genital Infection Symptoms Among Syrian Refugee Women in Lebanon: A Mixed-Methods Study to Adapt, Pilot Test, and Preliminarily Evaluate an Evidence-Based Intervention (5K01TW012435-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10929547. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*