College of Public Health, Department of Global and Community Health, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA
International Rescue Committee, New York, New York, USA.
BMJ Open. 2023 Apr 3;13(4):e069069. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-069069.
Immigrant and forcibly displaced women and girls are disproportionately impacted by the harmful health consequences of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the USA. Economic and Social Empowerment (EA$E), a women's protection and empowerment intervention, has shown promising reductions in IPV and gender inequities among forcibly displaced populations (FDPs) in low-income and middle-income countries. However, research on the integration of gender equity interventions into economic empowerment programming for FDPs within the USA is lacking. Additionally, there is growing interest in integrating gender equity programmes among US-based refugee resettlement organisations, including the International Rescue Committee (IRC). We describe our study protocol for examining the feasibility, acceptability and appropriateness of EA$E for use with US-based FDPs, and recommendations for adaptation.
This is a convergent parallel study to guide the adaptation of EA$E for use with US-based FDPs. Mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) will be used for the adaptation research. Quantitative data will consist of brief surveys, and qualitative data will consist of focus group discussions (FGDs). Our research will be guided by the 'administration' phase of the ADAPT-ITT framework, which entails pretesting the intervention with the new target audience and implementation context to examine acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility to receive feedback to inform modifications of the original intervention. This is done via theatre testing, an innovative approach to pretesting that allows the new target audience to experience the intervention and provide feedback. We will conduct FGDs with IRC staff (n=4, total of 24 participants) and refugee clients (n=8, total of 48 participants, women and men, French and English speaking).
The study has received approval from the George Mason University Human Subjects Committee (#1686712-7) and IRC (via reliance agreement). Results will be made available to refugee resettlement organisations, policymakers, funders and other researchers. This study has been registered in Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SZDVY).
移民和被迫流离失所的妇女和女孩在美国，受亲密伴侣暴力（IPV）的有害健康后果影响不成比例。经济和社会赋权（EA$E）是一项妇女保护和赋权干预措施，已显示出在中低收入国家的被迫流离失所人群（FDP）中减少 IPV 和性别不平等方面有很大的希望。然而，在美国，将性别平等干预措施纳入经济赋权方案以帮助 FDP 的研究还很缺乏。此外，美国境内的难民重新安置组织，包括国际救援委员会（IRC），对整合性别平等方案的兴趣日益增加。我们描述了我们的研究方案，以检验 EA$E 用于美国 FDP 的可行性、可接受性和适当性，并提出了改编建议。
这是一项 convergent parallel 研究，旨在指导 EA$E 在美国 FDP 中的使用改编。混合方法（定量和定性）将用于改编研究。定量数据将包括简短的调查，定性数据将包括焦点小组讨论（FGD）。我们的研究将遵循 ADAPT-ITT 框架的“管理”阶段，该阶段涉及用新的目标受众和实施环境预先测试干预措施，以检验接受度、适当性和可行性，以便获得反馈来为原始干预措施的修改提供信息。这是通过戏剧测试来实现的，这是一种新颖的预先测试方法，允许新的目标受众体验干预措施并提供反馈。我们将与 IRC 工作人员（n=4，共 24 名参与者）和难民客户（n=8，共 48 名参与者，男女，讲法语和英语）进行 FGD。
该研究已获得乔治梅森大学人类科学生物委员会（#1686712-7）和 IRC（通过依赖协议）的批准。结果将提供给难民重新安置组织、政策制定者、资助者和其他研究人员。本研究已在开放科学框架（https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SZDVY）中注册。
