OUR WORK
The Stanford Med | MENA Health Program partners with institutions across the Arab world to address critical gaps in health and research capacity — with an initial focus on populations affected by conflict and displacement.
WHAT WE’VE HISTORICALLY BUILT
Mental Health Intervention in Northwest Syria
Palestine Pediatric Research, Alliance, Leaders
A collaboration between Al-Quds University and Stanford University to address unmet child health needs in Palestine and develop the next generation of Palestinian physician-researchers.
Through mentorship and hands-on training, PALs supports Palestinian medical trainees in designing and leading pediatric data collection and interventions, advancing both the quality of child healthcare and an evidence-based understanding of Palestinian health needs. The program builds durable partnerships between American and Palestinian physician-scientists to strengthen research infrastructure and sustain knowledge exchange over time.
In partnership with Johns Hopkins University and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), we adapted and piloted the Common Elements Treatment Approach (CETA) for children in Northwest Syria, a population living through active conflict with virtually no access to formal mental health care.
The results were significant: participating children experienced greater than 90% reductions in mental health symptoms. Findings are now being prepared for peer-reviewed publication. On the strength of the outcomes, SAMS secured independent funding to scale the program across Syria, extending evidence-based mental health care to thousands more children in conflict zones.
WHAT WE’RE BUILDING NOW
THE NABD INITIATIVE
Across the Arab world, millions of people living through or displaced by conflict have no pathway to mental health care that reflects their language, culture, or experience. Existing interventions were developed largely outside the region, rarely co-designed with Arab communities, and have never been validated at scale. The gap is not a lack of need or of talent -- it is a lack of infrastructure.
Nabd exists to build that infrastructure.
In collaboration with leading mental health clinicians from across the Arab world and with Dr. Gabor Maté -- whose work on trauma has shaped how practitioners worldwide understand and treat it -- we are developing the first validated, co-designed mental health model for the Arab world. Beginning in Jordan, we are training local providers, generating rigorous outcome data, and building toward a replicable model that health ministries, health systems, and humanitarian organizations across the region can own and sustain long after we are no longer needed.
Our work in Syria demonstrated that evidence-based mental health interventions can produce transformative outcomes even in the most resource-constrained settings. Nabd is the next chapter: creating something with deep enough roots to last.