Sensoy Bahar, Kizito, Awarded the 2024 Global Incubator Seed Grants

Dr. Ozge Sensoy Bahar (ICHAD’s Co-Director) and Dr. Samuel Kizito (Faculty Affiliate) were awarded seed grants from WashU’s Here and Next Global Incubator Seed Grants Program. The program aims to stimulate high-impact research initiatives linking WashU faculty and international collaborators.

The first project, “Tailoring an evidence-based family strengthening intervention as a preventive approach to climate change stressors,” was awarded to Dr. Sensoy Bahar. Guided by the Method for Program Adaptation through Community Engagement (M-PACE) approach, this project will collaboratively tailor the Amaka Amasanyufu (Happy Families) intervention—a family strengthening intervention focused on child behavioral health, through a series of working groups with climate change experts and community partners to infuse climate change-related content that is easily digestible for families in Uganda. The team at WashU will collaborate with scholars at the School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Makerere University in Uganda.

The second project, “PrEP-AI: Development and validation of a machine learning model to identify high-risk adolescent girls and young women unlikely to initiate HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis in Uganda,” was awarded to Dr. Kizito. This project will leverage Machine Learning methodologies to develop the first ever model to identify adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Uganda at a high HIV risk of HIV transmission, who are unlikely to initiate PrEP, despite being eligible. If accurate, this model would guide clinicians on which AGYW need enhanced support, thus providing an opportunity for early and targeted intervention. Dr. Kizito will collaborate with scholars at Makerere University in Uganda on this project.

Details about these two awards can be found here.