10/09/06

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts

can be counted." –Albert Einstein

I am currently a member of several research groups: the Urban Health Research Group and the Youth Working Group, here at the Faculty of Health Sciences as well as the Arab Families Working Group http://www.afwg.net/ I am also a member of the Association for Health Promotion in Lebanon.

My research interests have developed over the years from the research projects that I have carried out from views of development practice [the focus of my doctoral thesis] to the structural determinants of health or the political economy of health [which revolves around analyzing how wider social, political and economic factors lead to social and health inequalities [Urban Health Study]. This revealed the detrimental effects of the legal system on people's well being especially children and their families [Child labor Study and recent Research on Arab Families].

I have carried out all these research projects in Lebanon and because of these experiences have come to better understand the social and historical context of health in the country.

My public health training has exposed me to the function of statistical data and analyses in health outcomes which I find interesting. However, my preferred research approach is naturalistic enquiry or better known as qualitative methodology which I find to be very useful in unraveling the complexities of lived experiences and finding answers to questions from people's point of view. To make qualitative research methods accessible to researchers in the Arab world, where this approach is used but not very well practiced, I have been recently involved in a joint venture between the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Social Research Center of the American University of Cairo to produce a Module on Qualitative Research which will be used by and builds on experiences from researchers and practitioners in the Arab world on the practice of qualitative research. It is still in its English draft form.    

Current research ventures include a research project on the coping strategies of families in post war conditions in selected areas in Beirut. This project will include war displaced families and those who have migrated from rural to urban suburbs of Beirut. My interest is in the effects of these conditions on the gender roles and especially on girls and their health outcomes. In the Youth Working Group, We are working on submitting an intervention study proposal to the Wellcome Trust asking for funds to implement a community based intervention to help improve the mental health of Palestinian adolescents living in a refugee camp in Beirut.