Measuring the health and wellbeing impacts of a scalable programme of psychosocial intervention for refugee youth
Principal Investigator: Catherine Panter-Brick (Yale University)
Citation:
The study assessed the health impact of a psychosocial intervention (led by Mercy Corps) comprising structured, group-based activities for youth displaced by the conflict. The effectiveness of the intervention was tested with a randomised controlled trial with both Syrian refugee and Jordanian youth This measures the impacts on this intervention on mental health, cognitive skills, physiological responses, and resilience. The study team found that a structured approach to stress attunement, implemented by trained community workers, can be effective in reducing psychosocial stress and insecurity. This included physiological evidence: cortisol levels, analysed from samples of hair pre/post intervention, showed effective stress regulation.