Fred Ssewamala, the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the Brown School and Founding Director of the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD), has been awarded a $3.3 million research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for a new study focused on adolescent girls transitioning into young adulthood.
The new study, known as Suubi4Her-Round 2 (2024-2029) will extend the original Suubi4Her study (2017-2023), that was implemented in Uganda among 1260 school-going adolescent girls aged 14-17 years at enrollment. The study will follow up with the participants for an additional 4-year period, with three data points.
In the original study, participants received an economic empowerment intervention consisting of incentivized youth development accounts for school tuition and income-generation, workshops on asset building and microenterprise promotion, and a family strengthening intervention delivered via multiple family groups (MFGs) to reduce HIV risk behaviors and improve mental health functioning. The interventions were implemented across 47 public secondary schools located within poverty-impacted and HIV-burdened communities in Uganda.
Findings have demonstrated short and medium-term success in reducing depressive symptoms, decrease in hopelessness, improvements in self-esteem, decrease in sexual risk-taking attitudes, and favorable attitudes towards safe sexual practices.
Moreover, in qualitative investigation, adolescents found the interventions to be highly acceptable. These findings have been widely published in peer-reviewed journals, including the American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Adolescent Health, and BMC Public Health.